Because I am buried in Midterm essays–yet again–in my Summer online courses, I don’t have time to make a proper entry. But since the topic has come up in the comments, I figured this is an excellent time to show a nice video on the relationship between slavery and secession. This was what Larry Wilmore and Jon Stewart of The Daily Show came up with back in 2010 during the sesquicentennial of South Carolina’s secession. Enjoy!

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About Christopher Shelley

Christopher Shelley teaches American history and American Indian history at Portland Community College. He is fond of border collies, and bleeds Dodger-blue.
Any and all opinions expressed here are those of the expressors themselves, and in no way represent the views of Portland Community College.

262 Responses to Slavery and Secession: The Daily Show’s Take

The clip is hilarious. Imagine what would have happened if a bunch of people flying flags celebrating Nat Turner’s Rebellion showed up in Lexington over the weekend. I’m pretty sure violence would have broken out once Goad flipped on Eddie Murphy’s reggae song, “Kill the White People.”
It’s heritage, not history.

It is always interesting to see people claim slavery had nothing to do with secession when the people who seceded stated that the issue of slavery was the reason for secession. It always comes back to slavery. Fortunately, we are changing this via the use of the primary sources in history education. As more and more people become acquainted with how historians work they are finding out what the people of the past said. It is a lot like Charles Dew stated in his book.

You are taking a narrow view of the secession documents. If you take them for what they are, they are nothing more than a list of grievances against the Federal government. I suggest you read each and every declaration and list these grievances to fully understand exactly what they are.
Even so if secession was secession was only about slavery, so what? Slavery was a legal institution in the United States, and these Southern states were part of that country. Slavery was not the cause of the war. This has nothing to do with what bothers me. It does appear that it bothers you because you can’t find the document that proves otherwise. What did you expect these states to say we are seceeding because we are seceeding? Does that make sense really?????

I am not going to go into what each individual soldier fought for, if slavery is the reason your ancestors fought then so be it. What side were they on?

Let’s look at a few facts shall we? First we agree that secession was not addressed in the Constitution, and we all agree that sovereign can mean independent. Therefore the Southern States believed that had a right to withdraw from the Federal government. So with that behind us there is no need to revisit those issues. It is agreed that the war started at Fort Sumter with Major Anderson leaving Moultrie to occupy Sumter. Where are the freed slaves? For now we shall say the Confederates fired on Sumter and Anderson surrendered that fort, where are the enslaved people? There are none either way. In all of the communications I have read about the issue at Fort Sumter slavery was not mentioned the first time. Now the firing at Fort Sumter caused the war, why did the Confederates fire on this fort. It was because Lincoln sent an invasion fleet to Charleston and Pensacola. So now we see the Confederacy fired on an invasion fleet. Where are the slaves? Again there are none. This is not my opinion these are historical fact.

I have also posted two US acts of Congress to this page you simply overlook them because they do not fit your idea of what the war was about. One gives the South a chance to come back under the Federal and keep their slaves; the other clearly states the war IS NOT about slavery. Again these are historical facts; to say otherwise is not being honest.

George, at this moment I’m grading exams so I don’t have time to engage your argument fully. But I will say briefly that Lincoln did not launch an invasion fleet to Charleston Harbor. The Star of the West was an unarmed transport. It had a navy escort, but that escort was instructed to wait in the offing, and not attempt to enter the harbor. Lincoln was very careful in this. He even informed the governor of South Carolina that this was happening. But Jeff Davis could not allow the resupply of the last U.S. fort in Confederate waters. The rest of the un-seceded South (especially Virginia) was watching, wondering just how serious this new Confederacy was about secession, and he couldn’t look irresolute. So he ordered the fort taken before the Star could arrive.

So, Lincoln maneuvered Davis into firing the first shot. Now the Union could look like the aggrieved party. If you want to be mad at Lincoln for being more clever than Davis, that’s fine. But those are the facts. This is what actually happened.

And there were no freed slaves because freeing slaves was not a Union goal–yet.

I think you are confusing the Star of the West with the smaller merchant ships Lincoln ordered to relieve Anderson with fresh food and supplies.. Buchannon ordered the Star of the West earlier to bring supplies to Sumter. it was deterred by Citadel cadets. Other than that you are right on. Lincoln sent a naval escort to assist only if Confederates did not allow the merchant ships to resupply Anderson at Sumter.

Oh! Well, thanks for the correction. I thought I read that in McPherson, but I just moved and don’t have all my books at hand (it’s like being blind). A quick search through Freehling doesn’t make clear the actual transports Lincoln sent. I don’t have my CD of primary sources available, either.

I looked for the names of the ships Lincoln sent, but I couldn’t find them in a cursory search. I don’t have the time to dedicate for thorough search either. All I know is that he sent merchant vessels, smaller in size to the “Star.” I think the Star was sent to Texas after Ft. Sumter. Perhaps Andy Hall can elaborate on that.

Yes, Star of the West was subsequently sent to Indianola (near present-day Port Lavaca) to pick up Federal troops being evacuated from Texas. While there she was captured by Confederate forces and subsequently taken to New Orleans.

I disagree about the secession part. You keep jumping to conclusions that are not supported by the facts. The Constitution was created in a certain way and meant to be a permanent union of the states. Secession is not in it because secession was not allowed. It is also not a compact between states. It is a permanent union. Now, the slave owners reached a conclusion that they could not stay in the Union because their labor system was under attack by economic forces they could not control as well as the fact it was not in keeping with the ideas brought forth in the American Revolution. They chose the concept of secession which ruined them.

As for the Sumter issue you’re only arguing tired, retread Lost Cause garbage. Anderson did not have to do anything rebels and secessionist trash wanted him to do. He was an officer in the United States Army and no authority in South Carolina could order him about. He had every right and authority to move his troops anywhere he wanted on US property which is what Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter were. If the traitors didn’t like it, then that’s just too damn bad.

Your statement about slaves at Sumter is just preposterous. It is pure ignorance. You are looking to make direct connections which don’t hold up. Again, let the people of the South use their own words to explain what they were doing. You find an overwhelming amount of them. You just ignore them because they prove you dead wrong. Again, start with the secession conventions.

Lincoln did not send an invasion fleet. That is just more of the Lost Cause victim garbage. He would have been justified in doing so anyway. Again, more trash that has been thoroughly ridiculed.

I went through the two documents. I explained what they really showed. Is historical context beyond your thought process?

That’s not the way it works, George. You have made a rather outrageous claim (“It was because Lincoln sent an invasion fleet to Charleston and Pensacola. So now we see the Confederacy fired on an invasion fleet”). It is up to you to prove this claim through evidence. You don’t get to make a claim like this and then tell us we’re the ones who have to fact-check it.

Good luck getting an answer. Georgie likes to make claims and then tell people to “Prove him wrong.” His blog is full of such posts. His more recent ones, “Lincoln’s Slave” proved to be a big embarrassment to him. Predictably, this didn’t change his demeanor. He next decided that Lincoln owned indentured servants. I pointed out this was wrong as well, he decided to block me.

Back up your claims with some facts once in a while, why don’t you? The only thing you do is make stupid and ignorant claims while ignoring all the facts that you don’t like. [Edit] [C]an’t [edit]…you [edit] even read the documents that the people wrote in 1860/61 stating repeatedly why they were seceding?

As usual George, the only thing you’ve done with this last post is prove you are incapable of learning. If I want an exercise in selective memory and history I can go to your website where the Lost Cause is on full display. You want a direct connection between slavery and the fucking CW? READ THE [@#$%&] DOCUMENTS! [Edit]

Instead we get another post from George whining that secession is not mentioned in the Constitution. Is divorce mentioned in the wedding vows? You know why it isn’t in there, but the part about until death do us part is is? Because it is meant to be forever. The people that wrote the [edit] Constitution meant for it to be forever. They [edit] told us that. You don’t get that part because you don’t like it. Well tough [luck]. You don’t get a choice in the matter.

[Edit] In education we stress that people learn at different levels throughout their lives. You are living proof that there is an exception to that theory. Some people don’t learn at all throughout their lives because they choose not to. That is willful ignorance. We need to put your picture and the rest of the neo-confederates in that section to illustrate the point.

Man the edits just take out so much of the wonderful insults I created for George. The last one was pretty good. I will have to start getting more creative because I’m sure George will just reply with the usual whine.
Oh, you missed one, Chris. You really should let them stand on their not-very-literary merit so George gets the entire point.

Looks like George is forgetting something important to the discussion about Ft. Sumter. It was US property, not Confederate of South Carolina’s. The US had every single right to do whatever they wanted with Sumter and the traitors had no rights whatsoever to stop the US. But George believes in the Lost Cause view of the conflict and of course the truth is not something that he wants to use to prove his point on Ft. Sumter.

If I show proof it may or may not be here. See Chris the problem is that you have let Dick and Baker drag your blog into the sewres. You may edit out a few words but the intended meaning is still there. So why should I post anything civil and factual here, when I can just post it to Cold southern Steel at http://coldsouthernsteel.wordpress.com/

This is fact. I canm here thinking that we could have a civil exchange of facts and ideas. I didn’t start the insults here. Remember how you were treated at Cold Southern Steel — you were welcomed and your posts were approved until you became insulting and only after several warnings were you not approved.

So my question again is why should I post any facts here when i can get by with just exchanging insults. It is your blog you set the standards.

Maybe? What is that? You ignore the documents again that prove Ft. Sumter was US property and say maybe? There is no maybe to it. Why don’t you stick to the facts and stop trying to insinuate something that is not true with a maybe? Now do like Chris says and show some proof.
Here is a good start. http://civilwarhome.com/doubledaysumter.html

Is this how you do it [Edit]??? You are so stupid and biased you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Hiow do we penetrate that stupid thick block you call a head and get some real facts in there. Why don’t you actually try and read a historical document?

The documents are very, very clear, George. The Declarations and Ordinances leave no doubt that the Cotton States left the Union because they were afraid of losing slavery. Perhaps you would like to show us something we’ve missed?

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860 [My emphasis throughout]

There: South Carolina is stating in very clear terms that the reason for it leaving the Union was the North’s hostility toward slavery. That, my friend, is what we in the trade call “proof.”

Really? So, you think that SC’s “Declaration of Causes” has nothing to do with secession? Because that’s the topic here–that’s what you said earlier: that secession had little or nothing to do with slavery.

I am with child to see your trump cards here–especially the two passed by Congress.

No, I don’t play word games, George. I’m into logic and argument. Here are your words:

Even so if secession was secession was only about slavery, so what? Slavery was a legal institution in the United States, and these Southern states were part of that country. Slavery was not the cause of the war.

So, I made the obvious connection: that without slavery, there’s no secession; without secession, there’s no war to restore the Union. That seems a very clear path based on this chain of events. What is your objection?

You are taking a narrow view of the secession documents. If you take them for what they are, they are nothing more than a list of grievances against the Federal government. I suggest you read each and every declaration and list these grievances to fully understand exactly what they are.
Even so if secession was secession was only about slavery, so what? Slavery was a legal institution in the United States, and these Southern states were part of that country. Slavery was not the cause of the war. This has nothing to do with what bothers me. It does appear that it bothers you because you can’t find the document that proves otherwise. What did you expect these states to say we are seceeding because we are seceeding? Does that make sense really?????

I am not going to go into what each individual soldier fought for, if slavery is the reason your ancestors fought then so be it. What side were they on?

Let’s look at a few facts shall we? First we agree that secession was not addressed in the Constitution, and we all agree that sovereign can mean independent. Therefore the Southern States believed that had a right to withdraw from the Federal government. So with that behind us there is no need to revisit those issues. It is agreed that the war started at Fort Sumter with Major Anderson leaving Moultrie to occupy Sumter. Where are the freed slaves? For now we shall say the Confederates fired on Sumter and Anderson surrendered that fort, where are the enslaved people? There are none either way. In all of the communications I have read about the issue at Fort Sumter slavery was not mentioned the first time. Now the firing at Fort Sumter caused the war, why did the Confederates fire on this fort. It was because Lincoln sent an invasion fleet to Charleston and Pensacola. So now we see the Confederacy fired on an invasion fleet. Where are the slaves? Again there are none. This is not my opinion these are historical fact.

I have also posted two US acts of Congress to this page you simply overlook them because they do not fit your idea of what the war was about. One gives the South a chance to come back under the Federal and keep their slaves; the other clearly states the war IS NOT about slavery. Again these are historical facts; to say otherwise is not being honest.

I really don’t understand, George. Are you saying that my connecting of the dots here is wrong? I have shown that slavery caused SC to secede. Are you saying you need proof now that that secession caused the war? That is self-evident. That’s why it’s called a “civil war.”

Chris I do not see hwere I said slavery had nothing to do with secession. Please narrow it down to the exact sentence. Yes your problem with connecting the dots is you skip what doen’t support your agenda.

“Even so if secession…was only about slavery, so what? Slavery was a legal institution in the United States, and these Southern states were part of that country. Slavery was not the cause of the war.”

I took that to mean that slavery did not cause the war. And my point is that it caused secession, which certainly caused the war. But if you want a quick, succinct summary of events to refer to, look no further than Mike’s comment:

The facts are: (1) Lincoln was elected president on a platform against slavery’s expansion to the territories. (2) SC and other states declared secession, issued ordinances, and began forming the CSA. (3) SC and other states stopped complying with the federal government. (5) Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter. (4) President Lincoln began preparing a response and explained his view of the situation to Congress on July 4, 1861. (5) Congress approved of Lincoln’s plan to militarily resolve the conflict so that the Union would remain intact.

The facts are: (1) Lincoln was elected president on a platform against slavery’s expansion to the territories. (2) SC and other states declared secession, issued ordinances, and began forming the CSA. (3) SC and other states stopped complying with the federal government. (5) Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter. (4) President Lincoln began preparing a response and explained his view of the situation to Congress on July 4, 1861. (5) Congress approved of Lincoln’s plan to militarily resolve the conflict so that the Union would remain intact.

So, no, George, you are not correct. Slavery was indeed the ultimate cause of the war.

And, to let you know, I’m very much not interested in you repeating yourself. If you don’t have any new argument or new observation–if you are merely going to repeat what you’ve already said–then just say “I respectfully disagree” and we can go our separate ways.

Chris,
No I am correct. I did not say that slavery was not a cause of the war. It is right there you did your best and failed. No harm in trying.
I do not see in Mikes post anywhere where he says slavery is the cause of the war. Cn you point that out???

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#Texas
The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
Proof that you don’t read all of the available material. ‘Nuff said.

No, it does matter, because it is yet another example in the body of evidence showing that secession was caused by slavery. And, to be honest, I have read the Texas Declaration but it was long ago, and I forgot about the Comanche part.

Sorry, George, but you don’t seem to be able to follow, or are outright denying that there is, a logical chain of events. I can’t have an argument with someone who ignores what I say as if I haven’t said it. I’m done here.

But thanks again for making me read the Texas Declaration–especially since it further supports the argument that slavery cause secession, and therefore the war. And thanks for the inspiration for writing this particular post.

One can question my assertions, one can question my sources, one can question my neutrality, one can question my conclusions–that’s fine. But the discussion here happens because we accept each other’s integrity. Whatever else I am doing here, I am describing the truth as I see it in the sources. So to call me a liar is very bad form indeed, George. The gods know I have not questioned your integrity here.

Another day, another post, another butt whomping of George. Man, Chris just slaughtered you with that post and you can’t see it. I love how you say you refuted documents and offer nothing to refute them with.
You are just in flat out denial of reality. I suggest some psychiatric counseling because it cannot be easy living a live of delusion. Here ya go, some Joe Walsh live to put it into perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=573c6GFQfjQ

Chris, as far as I know, Texas’ justification for secession is the *only* one that mentions Indians on the frontier. (Which make sense, because Texas was the only seceding state that had an active, ongoing conflict with Native Americans at the time.) But that’s a unique situation that applies to Texas, and cannot be attributed *generally* to the southern states that seceded. If you read the full document, the issue of slavery (and the perceived threat to it) gets a lot more space.

The resentment of the Texas Secession Convention over the perceived failure of the federal government to protect its citizens against the “savages” on the frontier, particularly the Comanche, pretty much puts the lie to the popular notion that Confederates were somehow “better” on Indian issues that the U.S. government was, before, during, or after the Civil War. Extermination of Indians was official policy of the Republic of Texas, even before statehood in 1845. Some folks get righteous about the hanging at Mankato, but on the Texas frontier the Texas Rangers generally didn’t bother with the pretense of legal proceedings or hauling Comanche raiders in for trial.

George claims that you have to prove to him that Secession. Caused. the War. because President Lincoln could have let South Carolina accomplish its declared secession without war. Kinda like Roosevelt could have left Japan alone after Pearl Harbor. It’s time to end this thread. It’s not even the thread you want George posting on!

I made some comments on George’s blog to see what his argument is and to clarify the chain of events, etc. It’s the same old thing that they’re stuck on, which has been refuted time and again. This Larry Wilmore clip gets right at it when he said that the south didn’t invent slavery but they hung on to it tightly, when generally the USA and the rest of the world was ending or seeking to end slavery. Moving on, moving on.

I just want to add here another shout out to the excellent job Al Mackey does to dismantle the false neoconfederate narrative, especially in the chapter by chapter “Book with No Credibility” posts. In the first one, Al has facts, data, and analysis, and he wrote this cogent description:

“Slavery was the issue behind the confederacy wanting its independence to start with. The Federals wanted to preserve the Union, but they struck against slavery almost from the start. Ben Butler’s coming up with the ‘contraband’ device to keep from returning enslaved people to owners was in May of 1861, and from that time onward slaves came into Union lines almost continually.”

I saw your comment at GP’s site, and I appreciated the attempt at clearing the waters, especially that I just didn’t understand what George was trying to say. I added the comment “What Mike said,” but GP never approved it. Oh well.

Yes, Al is a trove. Several times in all this I’ve referred to his material. His thrashing of that book is so complete, it scared me into posting my last thing on the Fourteenth Amendment because I thought he’s get there first and scoop me!

Yes your argument is the same old tired, worn out, agenda driven argunment that has been tried and tried again. You leave about half the events out of the order to prop your agenda. You brought absolutely no facts but posted your opinion, a bunch of “yes buts” and “what ifs” as if it means something. When you can bring some facts to the table you are welcome to do so.

You don’t have tto run another blog and insult me. I treated you well on Cold Southern Steel,. because of your post here I may not be so kind to you in the future. Think about it.

George, we have been over this. I am now convinced that no amount of facts, and no amount of linking those facts in neat cause-and-effect narrative form is going to convince you of anything. Mike has certainly tried, with more patience than I. I certainly can’t say it any clearer. I’ve watched Mike bring fact after fact, and this has become boring.

At least, though, we got you to admit that slavery had something to do with secession, so I suppose that’s a victory of sorts for the forces of reason.

Yes we have been over this and you, your budies and Mike are proven wrong. I brought to the table facts, by Pres. Buchanan, that cannot be disputed and Mike ran off. Of course he may be like you and never read the source, that may be the reason for his comments here.

Now you ubndertstand the comment “slavery had nothing to do with the war.” Amazing. Note I did not say agree but at least you understand.

See, this is the problem: you cannot lay out a bunch of documents and say “See? Facts” without showing how they tell the story. That’s not history. You have to assemble those facts into a convincing narrative–a narrative that at the same time takes all the facts into account–including how slavery caused secession–and how secession caused the wr. Certainly I have way to much to do today to waste time reading thousands of words on Buchanan. If you can’t paraphrase the important parts, using the occasional quote to drive your point home, why should I bother? I suspect Mike fell asleep or threw his hands up in disgust rather than ran away. So, again, bring something new to the table or don’t bother.

You know George is never going to accept anything as a fact if it proves him wrong. He needs to start learning how to be a historian instead of a heritage nut. There are Five C’s in history as this article explains. http://www.ysursa.com/history/pdf/Burke%20&%20Andews%20Five%20Cs%20of%20History.pdf
It would behoove the heritage crowd to learn them and apply them to what they do, but then that would end the heritage crowd. I make sure to explain these things to my students in my classes.

I read Buchanan’s account and the biography of him by Jean H. Baker. The facts remain the same: Confederate forces fired on USA’s Ft. Sumter.

The neoconfederate argument isn’t an argument at all but a hodgepodge of “why didn’t they” questions:
(1) If the founders wanted secession to be unconstitutional, why didn’t they write “Secession isn’t constitutional” in the Constitution?
(2) If the secessionists wanted war, why didn’t arm themselves more fully when the price was so low?
(3) If the USA was anti-slavery, why didn’t they free slaves from loyal slave states?

It goes on and on with the questions. And then the neoconfederates ignore or contort the answers. So, I’m finished answering.

As you know those questions have been answered repeatedly. The neo-confederates do not like the answers. They prefer their simplistic and extremely erroneous ideas which are not supported by the primary sources. It is really crazy because the people of the past were pretty blunt about why they did what they did. It is only after the war when men like Jubal Early understood that they were going to go down in history for rebelling unsuccessfully against the lawful government of the United States in order to be able to continue holding people in slavery that they began to change the story. All one has to do is look at the primary sources to see that.

Yet, these neo-confederates will not do that because that would mean acknowledging they are wrong. It is like Andy Hall said. The argument really isn’t about slavery for them. It is about their modern political ideology. They need a Confederacy to serve as a victim of the federal government. They cannot have a Confederacy that seceded over slavery even though some of them would like to restore that idea. Therefore they manufacture and maintain a falsified version of the past. Unfortunately for them their past is just as rotten as their ideology.

Their ideology is just like that of the Confederacy; a rejection of the principles brought into being by the American Revolution. Liberty and equality cannot be limited to a select audience. History shows these two principles are not bound by any limitations. They cannot be harnessed or restrained.

“True Democracy makes no enquiry about the color of the skin, or the place of nativity. Wherever it sees a man, it recognizes a being endowed by his Creator with original inalienable rights.” –Salmon Chase

and speaking of hodgepodge look at the neo-yankee as you have defined it.

The fact of the matter is I made the statement” slavery was not the cause of the war, you came to Cold Southern Steel to prove me wrong. You are unable to do that, so you retreat to this blog and and attack me and act like you cannot understand what the discussion.is about.

I went to your blog for the reasons I said, to understand your argument and to clarify the chain of events. I left when you said, “Lincoln getting shot was the second best thing that ever happened in this country.” Good day to you sir.

You came to Cold Southern Steel thinking you were some sort of wonder boy and that I would be an easy push over. You were wrong. You ran head first into Mr. Buchanan’s and ir stooped you like a steel door. You didn’t make one comment about the facts Buchanan outlined in these pages. You were trumped and retreated here to bolster your ego.

No you left when you realized you had bit off more than you cold chew. You left so that you would not have to admit the facts thus proving your agenda driven ideas were wrong

I do regret Lincoln did not get shot before he was elected president. that might have spared the lives of a million people both black and white

Actually, no. Mike went to your site to try and achieve some sort of communication of respect.

As far as the Buchanan material, as I’ve said, copying-and-pasting words on a page without any word of explanation does not constitute “facts” or any real “proof” of anything at all. Tell me, George, what does the Buchanan material mean? I don’t have the time nor energy to go over it without a compelling reason. You have not given me one.

My education didn’t come with a time machine that allows me to make up for all the time I would waste reading Buchanan. So summarize for me, George. Play a real historian for once. Synthesize the material, make an argument, give specific examples. It should be easy since you’ve got the documents right there. After you do that, if you’ve made an argument that I can’t ignore, I will read the material to see for myself. And then, if you’re right, I’ll say “Wow, you’re right.” Or I may not agree. Or I may agree with your argument, but not with your conclusions. That’s what real historical debate looks like.

But your education came with a time machine that allows you to set-up, maintain , and post on this blog and other blogs. Seems if you just came with excuses???? I do fully understand where you are coming from though. I man you never read thesecession docs., so why should you read Buchanan. I mean all you have to do is keep going back to the secession docs and pretending you don’t ubnderstand my argument.

Don’t try to ourtslick me, you just don’t have what it takes.

Like you, I am not a historian, I have never claimed to be a historian nor do I have any ambition to be one. I can read though and I have found the time to do so.

No. Slavery was overwhelmingly the sole cause of secession. The addresses of the special commissioners that I have discussed prove this. You are hiding behind the secession documents, which also show slavery was a cause. You refuse to even examine all of the “facts” that I laid out in that post. So who is ignoring facts now?

If you read through the addresses and letters of the Secession Commissioners here, you will find that they mention the tariff all of 5 times. They mention slavery 132 times. And that’s just the Commissioners documents on this page. There are over 40 such addresses and letters.

Take away the tariff, there is still a Civil War. Take away the Comanches, Texas still leaves the Union. Take away slavery, there is no war.

Chris, I have no need to read anything related to secession. I know wht these docs say. Now according toyour logic and the number of times slavery is mentioned< we go to the OR's type "war" in the search box we get over 300 hits. That wouldmean between 1861and 1865 there were over 300 wars going on in the US! Amazing.

It doesn' matter how many times slavery is mentioned, it was still only one issue.

I know what you are doing, you are playing what i call willful ignorant. That is you haven't haven't the sources or the facts to prove me wrong so you just stick with secession and the secession docs.in hopes that I will tire of the argument and give in to you. Not gonna happen.

You can pretend whatever you want there is noway to make my statement any clearer—-
SLAVERY WAS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE WAR

Chris, I’m sure I’ve told you this a hundred times. Buchanan let the Confederates seize all the federal property except Ft. Sumter in South Carolina, thus giving secession the Presidential imprimatur, even though Buchanan stated clearly that secession was unconstitutional (it’s the deeds not the words that matter — the Declarations of Causes of Secession are dicta; what matters is the deed that SC seceded etc.). Buchanan promised to let the Confederates have Ft. Sumter but then Buchanan and Lincoln reneged on that promise and it’s those renegers who started the war.

It looks like good old George can’t post anything with facts in it. The last three posts are essentially “I know you are, but what am I?” type posts. I find it amazing he accuses us of not understanding sources while he refused to analyze sources or accept sources that prove him wrong while cherry picking stuff and getting it out of context. If anything George has shown he is not a historian, but a diehard heritage nut incapable of learning.

Well, it’s frustrating because he wants me to read his sources with no interpretation–essentially, I have to do all the work–but he won’t read my sources, which I’ve done the work to make into an actual essay for his benefit. I’m not going to make him slog through a bunch of sources and leave him to figure it out; instead, I’ve done the work of putting them together and making an argument.

But that argument–that slavery and white supremacy caused secession–scares George, and so he must ignore it. It’s ironic that he accuses me of that in which he engages. In psychology, that’s called projection. For my part, I’m not ignoring his sources; I’m just waiting for him to make an argument about them. But he either doesn’t really know how to do that or he’s too lazy. I tend to think the former, but then, as Mike said, I’m probably too nice.

Well said. As you have probably noticed from following the blogs, almost all of the Causers prefer to make statements, erroneous claims, and then fail to provide anything to support their opinions. When they do offer something it is either out of context or overwhelmed by the available evidence. When we historians offer something they just ignore it. This is why I think they use the Lost Cause Handbook which makes them pretty predictable. They’re lazy. They can’t do a historical analysis of anything because they do not know how to do it. They just pick out what they want and that’s it. The rest is ignored and that is why they miss the context.

As for the Waterboy’s recent steaming pile over on Brooks’ blog, you can easily see how he has created an entirely inaccurate history for America which was ripped straight from the handbook. His history has to support his beliefs and ideology. It looks like he took a list of historical events and connected them working backwards. I think the Soviet propaganda writers would have offered him a job writing for them.

There are two extremes, George. One is to make assertions with no evidence. I hate that, and you’ve probably seen that on the CW blogs. The other extreme is to provide documents and such as evidence, but not tell anyone what you are asserting. What a historian does is combine these two ideas: make an assertion (a thesis), and then show the evidence that proves the thesis. Then we all get to argue about it.

What I honestly respect about you, George, is that you really think you’ve got a good thesis, and you are providing honest-to-god documentation for that thesis. And I truly, sincerely appreciate that. You aren’t yanking things out of context, you’re not manipulating data to get the result you want–none of the things dishonest people do. And that’s why I continue to let you argue on this blog: because I think you’re trying to tell the truth as you see it. I may disagree with that “truth,” but not because of you; rather, because I don’t think the evidence points that way.

My immediate problem here is two-fold: first, I can’t tell what your thesis is, because the documents do not speak for themselves. It is incumbent upon the historian to present both thesis and evidence. That is the nature of the craft. Second, I have done exactly that on my blog, in the post about secession and slavery: I offer a thesis, and then I present shit-tons of evidence–documents, “facts”–to support that thesis. And I did that because you inspired me to. But you refuse to read it!

I can’t work with that, George. I am more than will to examine your thesis on Sumter, but you have to provide me with one. (And again, that’s not being unfair; that’s just how the craft of history works). And I’m more than willing to listen to your critique of my post on why secession was caused by slavery, but I can’t unless you read it. We are at an impasse.

So show me the money, George. I’m not being disrespectful–I truly want to hear your Buchanan-Sumter argument. And likewise, I would appreciate it if you would read mine, and tell me why I’m wrong. I have no problem with that. But I truly tire of these “You didn’t prove it/yes I did/no you didn’t” spats. It is not interesting to me and I’ve got other things to do. (Did you see my new post on Lincoln’s racism?) So, please come back with something of substance, or fare thee well.

Oh good grief I am dealing with a buinch of 3rd graders who can’t read. Now they are arguging against a President of the United States. How far will they go to be right?? As I said attcak the nmessenger not the message. That says a lot about you and Dick.

Folks if you are getting tired of this BS please visit Cold Southern Steel or Southern Heritage Advancement Preservation and Education. I have factuial history posted.

Anyone can post a source. Tell us what they mean and in what context. So far you can’t do that. You can’t do much of anything but run your mouth and make stupid statements that you cannot back up. We’ve shown slavery was the cause of the Civil War. You cannot prove that it wasn’t.

You just cannot prove all the people in the past wrong. They said it was about slavery and you cannot shut them up.

See Jimmy that is the problem with stupid statements such as “slavery caused the war.” It is just that it is stupid. History does not support that statement. What Chris has proven and I admitted as much 731 replies ago is that slavery was one cause of secession. You have sucessfully proven how stupid you really are and I also admitted that ages ago.

Since then I have provided at least two sources that prove the war was not caused by slavery. They are the Ghost admendment and Mr. Buchanans Admin on the EVE. At the present time i am working on a 3rd source which is the ORs, which for the most part just support Buchanan’s satemnets. Now Chris and I are adults so there is no need for me to add any commentary to either of these documents because we both can read the written. You are a bit different, you hard headed and agenda driven so you more than likey need evry sentence broken down for you. That being your situation you are barking up the wrong tree. . I am not here to teach a bunch of grown-ups who act like 5th graders. Sorry.

BTW I note you all only attack the messenger not the message why is that???

Oh and by the way, I want to say thanks to George, the Waterboy, and all the Lost Causers out there. Thanks to them I am guaranteed employment for as long as I want to work. Somebody with intelligence has to teach and people like them cannot. So there will always be a need for people like me who can teach history to people who want to learn while people like George rant and rave about heritage and only appeal to stupid people.

Yes there will always be a need for people like you who can toe the line, in the field of academics, for the purpose of perpetuating the lie of the cause of the war and keep the shining myth of good old Abe bright. Notice how you fellows spin a couple of documents, that have nothing to do with the war, in favor of an agenda based on a lie.and stupidity and call it real history.That is an excellent example of why people like me, who does not swallow this ignorance hook, line and sinker will always be around. I don’t mind the attacks on me for the simple reason it serves to prove you cannot attack the message.

For these reasons peopke will always seek the truth at Cold Southern Steel or Southern Heritage Advancement Preservation and Education.

Your response shows you will say anything to get out of admitting slavery was the cause of the Civil War, George. The Ghost Amendment shows slavery was the cause of the CW. The SC declaration of secession shows slavery was the cause of the war. No one thinks it is a declaration of war. Where did you come up with that stupid idea? You just made three posts that show you don’t know anything about the cause of the war.

If anyone goes to your site it is because they chose to either remain stupid or to see what stupid people say about the past. You don’t do anything with history but mangle it.

At least I have students who can think. People like you prefer to live in ignorance. I would never let my students use your site for anything except as an example of why people who believe in the Lost Cause are morons. The facts are staring you in the face. You even have them and take them out of context trying to prove you are right. If you can’t figure out the secession declarations are about slavery, then that is just you being willfully ignorant.

Good job Jimmy , I knew that would be your exact response due to youir hate and ignorance . That being the case let’s just put this up for all readers sorta just to see which one of us isa liar.

The Ghost Admendment reads —
“No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” –Joint Resolution of Congress, Adopted March 2, 1861

This was before Sumter. It was a last ditch effort on the part of the Federal Governemnet to bring the states that had seceeded back into the fiold. If the issue had been slavery then the South would just returned and war avoided. Of course we know that didn’t happen.

The SC Declaration is not a declarations only idiots woulld think such.Oh that would be you wouldn’t it????

Just what domestic institution do you think they’re referring to in the document? Lincoln opposed the amendment by the way. This is where your lack of contextual understanding stabs you in the back. This amendment is more proof that it was about slavery. I am just shaking my head that you failed on this.

Really doesn’t amtter what Lincoln thought of the adm. The fact is it passed Congress and was on its way to ratification when war broke out. Are you now telling me that Lincoln started a war to keep this adm. from being ratified by the states??? Is that your position???

If the a13th adm. proves the war was about slavery, then you are telling me the South went to war for what Congress of the US was offerring then. Is that correct??? If so then why????

Jimmy this is just proof you have no clue what you are talking about. Instaed of trying to deal with real history I suggest you go back to you insults.That is where you are the most comfortable.

It doesn’t matter what Lincoln thought of the admend. It was passed and on the way to retification when war broke out. Now are you telling me that Lincoln started a war to prevent this adm.om becoming law???

Ok let’s say the adm. proves the war was about slavery. Now you are trying to tell me the Federal governemnt was offerring the institution of slavery to the South free and clear, but the South says no we do not want a gift we had rather fight instaed of getting our way. Is that the ignorance you are trying to promote??? Man that is really dumb.

Now you are trying to tell me the Federal governemnt was offerring the institution of slavery to the South free and clear, but the South says no we do not want a gift we had rather fight instaed of getting our way.

Yes! That’s exactly what we are saying. Because for the Deep South, it was crucial to expand slavery, not just keep it where it was. The Slave Power absolutely had to have new territories for slavery to expand into. New free territories would become free states. New free states would eventually have the power to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery (or so the Deep South feared). You would know this, George, if you had read my posts. And there’s nothing “dumb” about it. The secession commissioners’ addresses show this explicitly. This is exactly why slavery caused secession, which caused the war.

Nothing off-the-wall about it, George. It is the established narrative. I offer you my proof here. You see, merely keeping slavery in the states where it existed was not enough for Southern slaveholders. They required expansion of slavery into the territories; they required the nationalization of slave property, not just leaving it to state law. They overreacted to Lincoln’s election, and seceded.

The evidence I’ve shown is more than just the Ordinances of Secession. My evidence (which you clearly haven’t examined) is the addresses of the secession commissioners. There are over 40 such documents, and leave no doubt–no doubt at all–that the Deep South states left because they felt slavery was threatened; that the federal government was not protecting slavery; that slavery could not expand into the territories. As you like to say, George, “It’s all right there in the documents.”

So please, read those documents (and my post has the links), and then come back.

Of course I have. I continue to direct you to my real “proof,” and you continue to ignore it or pretend I haven’t. Read the addresses by the Special Secession Commissioners. There you will find unequivocal proof that the Cotton States seceded from the Union because they thought Lincoln was going to destroy it.

The Secession Commissioners addresses, as I’ve said. If you aren’t going bother reading the evidence, and commenting on that evidence, you aren’t contributing anything to this conversation. And if you aren’t going to contribute anything except “you haven’t proved it,” when clearly we have, you are just doing this:

And I have no use for it. So please add something or go back to Cold Southern Steel and put up some more of the ORs out of order to make it awkward for people to read properly.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, February 6, 1861.
Hon. I. W. HAYNE,
Attorney-General of the State of South Carolina:

It is difficult, however, to reconcile with this assurance the declaration on your part that “it is a consideration of her [South Carolina’s]

Page 168

own dignity as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a Government she no longer acknowledges,” and the thought you so constantly present, that this occupation must lead to a collision of arms, and the prevalence of civil war.

J. HOLT,
Secretary of War.

There is your cause right there put into plain English. Now about those secession docs———

I can go back to Cold Southern Steel it doesn’t matter to me, you will still be wrong. Of cources you can always post another page and get props from your buddies who are just as wrong as you are. It your choice, do what floats your boat.

No, the secession docs are vital and telling. You myopically focus on who shot first in the context of two independent countries, while refusing to look at why one of these countries came into being, and why the other refused to accept that.

Let us also note here for the public record that George did not analyze the South Carolina Declaration of Secession. He said it was a list of grievances against the United States. Note that he did not state what those grievances were about. That would be due to the fact that those grievances dealt with the issue of slavery.

Still waiting on your analysis, George. A list of grievances? What grievances? Let’s ANALYZE the document. Hmm, looks like they were complaining about the issue of slavery. Since there is only one issue in the document it must only be about ONE issue and that does not make it a list. Man, I’m shaking my head again at George’s inability to analyze a historical document.

Slavery was an issue. I have said that many times. Now please point out the passage where they said they the purpose of going to war was beacsue of that institution. Please point out where they decklared war on the US.I have not been able to find that passage in several years.

Oh and BTW the 13th adm. came after secession. That means it trumps any secession document you can find.

Oh, good, George contradicts himself as usual. Imagine my surprise. George, you also make a claim regarding something I never said. Also, no surprise here. See, the Corwin Amendment was favored by Lincoln. You didn’t do any research on this or you would have caught that deliberate insertion into the conversation to see if you actually bothered to look stuff up.

This amendment was passed before Lincoln came into office by Congress. It went to the states for ratification per the Constitution. The only way it could have passed was with approval by some states that seceded. However, Jefferson Davis ordered the attack on Ft. Sumter thus starting the Civil War. I’m sure you think that was not what started the war, George, but it was. It was an armed insurrection against the lawful government of the United States. Lincoln was perfectly within his rights as president to call up the militia and send the army against anyone in arms against the US government.

So Lincoln did not start the war, he did not declare war against the confederacy because he was not declaring war against a sovereign government. He was putting down a rebellion within the borders of the United States of America. That is beyond dispute. If you think otherwise, George, then you need to go back to school because you failed basic history.

But then you deliberately refuse to use context in your so called research. You are not a historian. You are an idiot trying to pretend you know something. You have been proven wrong on multiple occasions and just like the Waterboy you keep repeating the same stupid things over and over again. I don’t care how many times you say slavery was not the primary cause of the CW, George, it was. You have never even shown any proof that it wasn’t. In fact, you have proven that it was on a few occasions. The Corwin amendment is just a sterling example of that.

George’s Words: “Ok let’s say the adm. proves the war was about slavery. Now you are trying to tell me the Federal governemnt was offerring the institution of slavery to the South free and clear, but the South says no we do not want a gift we had rather fight instaed of getting our way.”

Yep. That’s what we are saying. That is exactly what happened. The amendment was the gift of slavery IN THE STATES WHERE IT EXISTED. It was not in the territories. Here is what Lincoln said about the amendment in his inaugural address, “I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service….holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Now here is the question. Would this amendment have been ratified had the seven states of the Deep South not seceded and started the CW? I think it might have had a realistic chance. However, we will never know. Once the war started the amendment was dead in the water. The argument made by the people of that time period was about the expansion of slavery, not where it already existed. Sure, the abolitionists were all for ending slavery, but they were a minority. A very small minority at that. That amendment would have killed abolition on a national level, but not the state level. Abolitionists could continue to work to get states to end slavery.

No, the slaveowners needed slavery to expand. That is what they were saying and that is what the argument was about. This amendment did absolutely nothing to halt that argument. Lincoln was on record on this issue multiple times. The CW itself is responsible for making the ending of slavery possible. Who knows what would have happened had a war not been fought? But it was and that is as they say, history. As is the Corwin amendment. It too went into the scrapheap of proposed amendments that failed for one reason or another.

As for the 13th amendment, it was the byproduct of a war about slavery. I do not know where you get your idea there, but it wasn’t from us. You are trying to insert words into the conversation and attribute them to us, but I think we do a better job keeping track than you do. We do not claim that the US went to war to end slavery. It is plainly obvious it did not fight to do so until ending slavery became a war goal. The war was about slavery though because the people of that time told us it was. Specifically they said it was about the expansion of slavery which to the people of the south was the foundation of their way of life (their own words too). They believed that without slavery’s expansion the institution would wither and die. For slaveowners that meant the loss of their political power.

For decades the slaveowners had used the power of the federal government to expand and protect their institution of slavery. The election of 1860 with Lincoln not even on the ballot in most southern states signified the loss of the control. With slavery’s expansion potentially blocked slaveowners would never control the federal government and use it to support their policies and their plantation style economic system which was inefficient and not very well conducive to the rest of the country. Slavery was the common thread that bound those states together via the slaveowners control. If that thread was broken, what real power did a slaveowner have? If slavery could not expand, how could the political power of the slaveowners be maintained?

Kansas was the state most likely to be able to support slavery out of the rest of the west. It failed to expand to that state. The slaveowners saw themselves being hemmed in and reacted accordingly. You can say it was about economics. Sure, the economics of slavery. You can say it was about politics. Sure, the politics of slavery. You can say it was about anything, but it always comes back to slavery each time. Thomas Hart Benton said it best “We read in Holy Writ, that a certain people were cursed by a plague of frogs, and that the plague was everywhere. You could not sit down at the banquet table but there were frogs, you could not go to the bridal couch and lift the sheets but there were frogs! We can see nothing, touch nothing, have no measures proposed, without having this pestilence thrust before us. Here it is, this black question, forever on the table, on the nuptial couch, everywhere!”

If you think I have cherry picked anything, feel free to do the look-ups in the OPRs yourself. I gave exact references so it should make the job easy for you.

Oh BTW everything I have saidis being verified by at least two sources. I have yet tofind anything supporting your claim the secession docs prove the Confederacy was fighting for slavery. So far all we have is the opinion of you and Chris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While we’re at it, let’s put in this quote by Alvin Toffler which is rapidly being proven by George and the neo-confederates everywhere. The world is going to pass those people by and in my opinion is already doing so.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ”

Oh George, we’re waiting on all your proof with breathless anticipation. You know, those facts you keep claiming to have. Like the one you used by Buchanan that actually proved you wrong. One day when you learn how to be a historian you might figure out why you got it wrong. I won’t be holding my breath. But until you can prove your claims which you have failed to do repeatedly EVERY SINGLE TIME no one is going to take you seriously.

You can’t even go through the South Carolina Declaration of Secession without screwing it up. I’m still waiting on your analysis which you have not provided.

You saying Buchanan is wrong is not proof. If you wnat me to be wrong then find in Mr. Buchanan’s where Buchanan says we are going to war because of the institution of slavery. Ther ORs must be wrong also as that verify everything Buchanan says. I guess Jimmy Dick and Chris Shelley know more about the events than the presiding President of The United States at the time????

I “sent” no-one anywhere. Mike chose to try and engage you fairly. I watched him try and deal with your circular arguments with poise, until you frustrated him.

Oh, I have figured it out, George. If you wish to comment here any more on this topic (you are free to comment on other topics, of course), then you must deal with the secession commissioners’ addresses. If not, have a Dodger Day!

And we showed you that Buchanan was talking about slavery. I can’t help it if you can’t read basic English. The ORs do not say what you think they say. Once again, you have lied to everyone. Third paragraph. Read it and tell me what it says.

[James Buchanan, Annual Message to Congress, 3 December 1860]
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Throughout the year since our last meeting the country has been eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The general health has been excellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty smiles throughout the laud. Our commerce and manufactures have been prosecuted with energy and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented a spectacle of greater material prosperity than we have done until within a very recent period.
Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?

THIS ONE HERE, GEORGE!!!!!!

The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been formed.

[THAT] PARAGRAPH RIGHT HERE GEORGE [THERE] HE SAYS SLAVERY IS THE PROBLEM!!!!

I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union (as others have been) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.
But let us take warning in time and remove the cause of danger. It can not be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, “to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war.” This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.
How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country!
They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.
Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance I confess I still greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the States. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.
And this brings me to observe that the election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of “a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise” of powers not granted by the Constitution.
The late Presidential election, however, has been held in strict conformity with its express provisions. How, then, can the result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? Reason, justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait for some overt and dangerous act on the part of the President elect before resorting to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the antecedents of the President-elect have been sufficient to justify the fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this Government affords in itself a guaranty that he will not attempt any violation of a clear constitutional right.
After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of the Government. His province is not to make but to execute the laws. And it is a remarkable fact in our history that, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the antislavery party, no single act has ever passed Congress, unless we may possibly except the Missouri compromise, impairing in the slightest degree the rights of the South to their property in slaves; and it may also be observed, judging from present indications, that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress. Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The day of evil may never come unless we shall rashly bring it upon ourselves.
It is alleged as one cause for immediate secession that the Southern States are denied equal rights with the other States in the common Territories. But by what authority are these denied? Not by Congress, which has never passed, and I believe never will pass, any act to exclude slavery from these Territories; and certainly not by the Supreme Court, which has solemnly decided that slaves are property, and, like all other property, their owners have a right to take them into the common Territories and hold them there under the protection of the Constitution.
So far then, as Congress is concerned, the objection is not to anything they have already done, but to what they may do hereafter. It will surely be admitted that this apprehension of future danger is no good reason for an immediate dissolution of the Union. It is true that the Territorial legislature of Kansas, on the 23d February, 1860, passed in great haste an act over the veto of the governor declaring that slavery “is and shall be forever prohibited in this Territory.” Such an act, however, plainly violating the rights of property secured by the Constitution, will surely be declared void by the judiciary whenever it shall be presented in a legal form.
Only three days after my inauguration the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly adjudged that this power did not exist in a Territorial legislature. Yet such has been the factious temper of the times that the correctness of this decision has been extensively impugned before the people, and the question has given rise to angry political conflicts throughout the country. Those who have appealed from this judgment of our highest constitutional tribunal to popular assemblies would, if they could, invest a Territorial legislature with power to annul the sacred rights of property. This power Congress is expressly forbidden by the Federal Constitution to exercise. Every State legislature in the Union is forbidden by its own constitution to exercise it. It can not be exercised in any State except by the people in their highest sovereign capacity, when framing or amending their State constitution. In like manner it can only be exercised by the people of a Territory represented in a convention of delegates for the purpose of framing a constitution preparatory to admission as a State into the Union. Then, and not until then, are they invested with power to decide the question whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. This is an act of sovereign authority, and not of subordinate Territorial legislation. Were it otherwise, then indeed would the equality of the States in the Territories be destroyed, and the rights of property in slaves would depend not upon the guaranties of the Constitution, but upon the shifting majorities of an irresponsible Territorial legislature. Such a doctrine, from its intrinsic unsoundness, can not long influence any considerable portion of our people, much less can it afford a good reason for a dissolution of the Union.
The most palpable violations of constitutional duty which have yet been committed consist in the acts of different State legislatures to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law. It ought to be remembered, however, that for these acts neither Congress nor any President can justly be held responsible. Having been passed in violation of the Federal Constitution, they are therefore null and void. All the courts, both State and national, before whom the question has arisen have from the beginning declared the fugitive-slave law to be constitutional. The single exception is that of a State court in Wisconsin, and this has not only been reversed by the proper appellate tribunal, but has met with such universal reprobation that there can be no danger from it as a precedent. The validity of this law has been established over and over again by the Supreme Court of the United States with perfect unanimity. It is rounded upon an express provision of the Constitution, requiring that fugitive slaves who escape from service in one State to another shall be “delivered up” to their masters. Without this provision it is a well-known historical fact that the Constitution itself could never have been adopted by the Convention. In one form or other, under the acts of 1793 and 1850, both being substantially the same, the fugitive-slave law has been the law of the land from the days of Washington until the present moment. Here, then, a clear case is presented in which it will be the duty of the next President, as it has been my own, to act with vigor in executing this supreme law against the conflicting enactments of State legislatures. Should he fail in the performance of this high duty, he will then have manifested a disregard of the Constitution and laws, to the great injury of the people of nearly one-half of the States of the Union. But are we to presume in advance that he will thus violate his duty? This would be at war with every principle of justice and of Christian charity. Let us wait for the overt act. The fugitive-slave law has been carried into execution in every contested case since the commencement of the present Administration, though Often, it is to be regretted, with great loss and inconvenience to the master and with considerable expense to the Government. Let us trust that the State legislatures will repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments. Unless this shall be done without unnecessary delay, it is impossible for any human power to save the Union.
The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that event the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union.
I have purposely confined my remarks to revolutionary resistance, because it has been claimed within the last few years that any State, whenever this shall be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from the Union in accordance with the Constitution and without any violation of the constitutional rights of the other members of the Confederacy; that as each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own people assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire from the Union in a similar manner by the vote of such a convention.
In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.
Such a principle is wholly inconsistent with the history as well as the character of the Federal Constitution. After it was framed with the greatest deliberation and care it was submitted to conventions of the people of the several States for ratification. Its provisions were discussed at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers upon the Federal Government dangerous to the rights of the States, whilst its advocates maintained that under a fair construction of the instrument there was no foundation for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle between the first intellects of this or any other country it never occurred to any individual, either among its opponents or advocates, to assert or even to intimate that their efforts were all vain labor, because the moment that any State felt herself aggrieved she might secede from the Union. What a crushing argument would this have proved against those who dreaded that the rights of the States would be endangered by the Constitution! The truth is that it was not until many years after the origin of the Federal Government that such a proposition was first advanced. It was then met and refuted by the conclusive arguments of General Jackson, who in his message of the 16th of January, 1833, transmitting the nullifying ordinance of South Carolina to Congress, employs the following language:
The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will and without the consent of the other States from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this Union, can not be acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to the principles upon which the General Government is constituted and to the objects which it is expressly formed to attain.
It is not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives countenance to such a theory. It is altogether rounded upon inference; not from any language contained in the instrument itself, but from the sovereign character of the several States by which it was ratified. But is it beyond the power of a State, like an individual, to yield a portion of its sovereign rights to secure the remainder? In the language of Mr. Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution–
It was formed by the States; that is, by the people in each of the States acting in their highest sovereign capacity, and formed, consequently, by the same authority which formed the State constitutions. Nor is the Government of the United States, created by the Constitution, less a government, in the strict sense of the term, within the sphere of its powers than the governments created by the constitutions of the States are within their several spheres. It is, like them, organized into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. It operates, like them directly on persons and things, and, like them, it has at command a physical force for executing the powers committed to it.
It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at the pleasure of any one of the contracting parties. The old Articles of Confederation were entitled “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States,” and by the thirteenth article it is expressly declared that “the articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual.” The preamble to the Constitution of the United States, having express reference to the Articles of Confederation, recites that it was established “in order to form a more perfect union.” And yet it is contended that this “more perfect union” does not include the essential attribute of perpetuity.
But that the Union was designed to be perpetual appears conclusively from the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution on the Federal Government. These powers embrace the very highest attributes of national sovereignty. They place both the sword and the purse under its control. Congress has power to make war and to make peace, to raise and support armies and navies, and to conclude treaties with foreign governments. It is invested with the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States. It is not necessary to enumerate the other high powers which have been conferred upon the Federal Government. In order to carry the enumerated powers into effect, Congress possesses the exclusive right to lay and collect duties on imports, and, in common with the States, to lay and collect all other taxes.
But the Constitution has not only conferred these high powers upon Congress, but it has adopted effectual means to restrain the States from interfering with their exercise. For that purpose it has in strong prohibitory language expressly declared that–
No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.
Moreover–
No State shall without the consent of the Congress lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws.
And if they exceed this amount the excess shall belong, to the United States. And–
No State shall without the consent of Congress lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
In order still further to secure the uninterrupted exercise of these high powers against State interposition, it is provided that–
This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The solemn sanction of religion has been superadded to the obligations of official duty, and all Senators and Representatives of the United States, all members of State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, “both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.”
In order to carry into effect these powers, the Constitution has established a perfect Government in all its forms–legislative, executive, and judicial; and this Government to the extent of its powers acts directly upon the individual citizens of every State, and executes its own decrees by the agency of its own officers. In this respect it differs entirely from the Government under the old Confederation, which was confined to making requisitions on the States in their sovereign character. This left it in the discretion of each whether to obey or to refuse, and they often declined to comply with such requisitions. It thus became necessary for the purpose of removing this barrier and “in order to form a more perfect union” to establish a Government which could act directly upon the people and execute its own laws without the intermediate agency of the States. This has been accomplished by the Constitution of the United States. In short, the Government created by the Constitution, and deriving its authority from the sovereign people of each of the several States, has precisely the same right to exercise its power over the people of all these States in in the enumerated cases that each one of them possesses over subjects not delegated to the United States, but “reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”
To the extent of the delegated powers the Constitution of the United States is as much a part of the constitution of each State and is as binding upon its people as though it had been textually inserted therein.
This Government, therefore, is a great and powerful Government, invested with all the attributes of sovereignty over the special subjects to which its authority extends. Its framers never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they at its creation guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution. It was not intended by its framers to be the baseless fabric of a vision, which at the touch of the enchanter would vanish into thin air, but a substantial and mighty fabric, capable of resisting the slow decay of time and of defying the storms of ages. Indeed, well may the jealous patriots of that day have indulged fears that a Government of such high powers might violate the reserved rights of the States, and wisely did they adopt the rule of a strict construction of these powers to prevent the danger. But they did not fear, nor had they any reason to imagine, that the Constitution would ever be so interpreted as to enable any State by her own act, and without the consent of her sister States, to discharge her people from all or any of their federal obligations.
It may be asked, then, Are the people of the States without redress against the tyranny and oppression of the Federal Government? By no means. The right of resistance on the part of the governed against the oppression of their governments can not be denied. It exists independently of all constitutions, and has been exercised at all periods of the world’s history. Under it old governments have been destroyed and new ones have taken their place. It is embodied in strong and express language in our own Declaration of Independence. But the distinction must ever be observed that this is revolution against an established government, and not a voluntary secession from it by virtue of an inherent constitutional right. In short, let us look the danger fairly in the face. Secession is neither more nor less than revolution. It may or it may not be a justifiable revolution, but still it is revolution.
What, in the meantime, is the responsibility and true position of the Executive? He is bound by solemn oath, before God and the country, “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and from this obligation he can not be absolved by any human power. But what if the performance of this duty, in whole or in part, has been rendered impracticable by events over which he could have exercised no control? Such at the present moment is the case throughout the State of South Carolina so far as the laws of the United States to secure the administration of justice by means of the Federal judiciary are concerned. All the Federal officers within its limits through whose agency alone these laws can be carried into execution have already resigned. We no longer have a district judge, a district attorney, or a marshal in South Carolina. In fact, the whole machinery of the Federal Government necessary for the distribution of remedial justice among the people has been demolished, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace it.
The only acts of Congress on the statute book bearing upon this subject are those of February 28, 1795, and March 3, 1807. These authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the marshal, with his posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any particular case, to call forth the militia and employ the Army and Navy to aid him in performing this service, having first by proclamation commanded the insurgents “to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time” This duty can not by possibility be performed in a State where no judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no marshal to execute it, and where, even if there were such an officer, the entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him.
The bare enumeration of these provisions proves how inadequate they are without further legislation to overcome a united opposition in a single State, not to speak of other States who may place themselves in a similar attitude. Congress alone has power to decide whether the present laws can or can not be amended so as to carry out more effectually the objects of the Constitution.
The same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of executing the laws for the collection of the customs. The revenue still continues to be collected as heretofore at the custom-house in Charleston, and should the collector unfortunately resign a successor may be appointed to perform this duty.
Then, in regard to the property of the United States in South Carolina. This has been purchased for a fair equivalent, “by the consent of the legislature of the State,” “for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals,” etc., and over these the authority “to exercise exclusive legislation” has been expressly granted by the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed that any attempt will be made to expel the United States from this property by force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants.
Apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign de facto government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It is therefore my duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all its beatings. The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this important subject.
The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not “necessary and proper for carrying into execution” any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.
It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause “authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State” came up for consideration. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed:
The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.
Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: “Any government for the United States formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress,” evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old Confederation.
Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. Suppose such a war should result in the conquest of a State; how are we to govern it afterwards? Shall we hold it as a province and govern it by despotic power? In the nature of things, we could not by physical force control the will of the people and compel them to elect Senators and Representatives to Congress and to perform all the other duties depending upon their own volition and required from the free citizens of a free State as a constituent member of the Confederacy.
But if we possessed this power, would it be wise to exercise it under existing circumstances? The object would doubtless be to preserve the Union. War would not only present the most effectual means of destroying it, but would vanish all hope of its peaceable reconstruction. Besides, in the fraternal conflict a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between the States impossible. In the meantime, who can foretell what would be the sufferings and privations of the people during its existence?
The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force.
But may I be permitted solemnly to invoke my countrymen to pause and deliberate before they determine to destroy this the grandest temple which has ever been dedicated to human freedom since the world began? It has been consecrated by the blood of our fathers, by the glories of the past, and by the hopes of the future. The Union has already made us the most prosperous, and ere long will, if preserved, render us the most powerful, nation on the face of the earth. In every foreign region of the globe the title of American citizen is held in the highest respect, and when pronounced in a foreign land it causes the hearts of our countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely when we reach the brink of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror from the last fatal plunge.
By such a dread catastrophe the hopes of the friends of freedom throughout the world would be destroyed, and a long night of leaden despotism would enshroud the nations. Our example for more than eighty years would not only be lost, but it would be quoted as a conclusive proof that man is unfit for self-government.
It is not every wrong–nay, it is not every grievous wrong–which can justify a resort to such a fearful alternative. This ought to be the last desperate remedy of a despairing people, after every other constitutional means of conciliation had been exhausted. We should reflect that under this free Government there is an incessant ebb and flow in public opinion. The slavery question, like everything human, will have its day. I firmly believe that it has reached and passed the culminating point. But if in the midst of the existing excitement the Union shall perish, the evil may then become irreparable.
Congress can contribute much to avert it by proposing and recommending to the legislatures of the several States the remedy for existing evils which the Constitution has itself provided for its own preservation. This has been tried at different critical periods of our history, and always with eminent success. It is to be found in the fifth article, providing for its own amendment. Under this article amendments have been proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and have been “ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States,” and have consequently become parts of the Constitution. To this process the country is indebted for the clause prohibiting Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of petition. To this we are also indebted for the bill of rights which secures the people against any abuse of power by the Federal Government. Such were the apprehensions justly entertained by the friends of State rights at that period as to have rendered it extremely doubtful whether the Constitution could have long survived without those amendments.
Again the Constitution was amended by the same process, after the election of President Jefferson by the House of Representatives, in February, 1803. This amendment was rendered necessary to prevent a recurrence of the dangers which had seriously threatened the existence of the Government during the pendency of that election. The article for its own amendment was intended to secure the amicable adjustment of conflicting constitutional questions like the present which might arise between the governments of the States and that of the United States. This appears from contemporaneous history. In this connection I shall merely call attention to a few sentences in Mr. Madison’s justly celebrated report, in 1799, to the legislature of Virginia. In this he ably and conclusively defended the resolutions of the preceding legislature against the strictures of several other State legislatures. These were mainly rounded upon the protest of the Virginia legislature against the “alien and sedition acts,” as “palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution.” In pointing out the peaceful and constitutional remedies–and he referred to none other–to which the States were authorized to resort on such occasions, he concludes by saying that–
The legislatures of the States might have made a direct representation to Congress with a view to obtain a rescinding of the two offensive acts, or they might have represented to their respective Senators in Congress their wish that two-thirds thereof would propose an explanatory amendment to the Constitution; or two-thirds of themselves, if such had been their option, might by an application to Congress have obtained a convention for the same object.
This is the very course which I earnestly recommend in order to obtain an “explanatory amendment” of the Constitution on the subject of slavery. This might originate with Congress or the State legislatures, as may be deemed most advisable to attain the object. The explanatory amendment might be confined to the final settlement of the true construction of the Constitution on three special points:
1. An express recognition of the right of property in slaves in the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist.
2. The duty of protecting this right in all the common Territories throughout their Territorial existence, and until they shall be admitted as States into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe.
3. A like recognition of the right of the master to have his slave who has escaped from one State to another restored and “delivered up” to him, and of the validity of the fugitive-slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a declaration that all State laws impairing or defeating this right are violations of the Constitution, and are consequently null and void. It may be objected that this construction of the Constitution has already been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, and what more ought to be required? The answer is that a very large proportion of the people of the United States still contest the correctness of this decision, and never will cease from agitation and admit its binding force until clearly established by the people of the several States in their sovereign character. Such an explanatory amendment would, it is believed, forever terminate the existing dissensions, and restore peace and harmony among the States.
It ought not to be doubted that such an appeal to the arbitrament established by the Constitution itself would be received with favor by all the States of the Confederacy. In any event, it ought to be tried in a spirit of conciliation before any of these States shall separate themselves from the Union.
When I entered upon the duties of the Presidential office, the aspect neither of our foreign nor domestic affairs was at all satisfactory. We were involved in dangerous complications with several nations, and two of our Territories were in a state of revolution against the Government. A restoration of the African slave trade had numerous and powerful advocates. Unlawful military expeditions were countenanced by many of our citizens, and were suffered, in defiance of the efforts of the Government, to escape from our shores for the purpose of making war upon the offending people of neighboring republics with whom we were at peace. In addition to these and other difficulties, we experienced a revulsion in monetary affairs soon after my advent to power of unexampled severity and of ruinous consequences to all the great interests of the country. When we take a retrospect of what was then our condition and contrast this with its material prosperity at the time of the late Presidential election, we have abundant reason to return our grateful thanks to that merciful Providence which has never forsaken us as a nation in all our past trials.
Our relations with Great Britain are of the most friendly character. Since the commencement of my Administration the two dangerous questions arising from the Clayton and Bulwer treaty and from the right of search claimed by the British Government have been amicably and honorably adjusted.
The discordant constructions of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty between the two Governments, which at different periods of the discussion bore a threatening aspect, have resulted in a final settlement entirely satisfactory to this Government. In my last annual message I informed Congress that the British Government had not then “completed treaty arrangements with the Republics of Honduras and Nicaragua in pursuance of the understanding between the two Governments. It is, nevertheless, confidently expected that this good work will ere long be accomplished.” This confident expectation has since been fulfilled. Her Britannic Majesty concluded a treaty with Honduras on the 28th November, 1859, and with Nicaragua on the 28th August, 1860, relinquishing the Mosquito protectorate. Besides, by the former the Bay Islands are recognized as a part of the Republic of Honduras. It may be observed that the stipulations of these treaties conform in every “important particular to the amendments adopted by the Senate of the United States to the treaty concluded at London on the 17th October, 1856, between the two Governments. It will be recollected that this treaty was rejected by the British Government because of its objection to the just and important amendment of the Senate to the article relating to Ruatan and the other islands in the Bay of Honduras.
It must be a source of sincere satisfaction to all classes of our fellow-citizens, and especially to those engaged in foreign commerce, that the claim on the part of Great Britain forcibly to visit and search American merchant vessels on the high seas in time of peace has been abandoned. This was by far the most dangerous question to the peace of the two countries which has existed since the War of 1812. Whilst it remained open they might at any moment have been precipitated into a war. This was rendered manifest by the exasperated state of public feeling throughout our entire country produced by the forcible search of American merchant vessels by British cruisers on the coast of Cuba in the spring of 1858. The American people hailed with general acclaim the orders of the Secretary of the Navy to our naval force in the Gulf of Mexico “to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation.” These orders might have produced an immediate collision between the naval forces of the two countries. This was most fortunately prevented by an appeal to the justice of Great Britain and to the law of nations as expounded by her own most eminent jurists.
The only question of any importance which still remains open is the disputed title between the two Governments to the island of San Juan, in the vicinity of Washington Territory. As this question is still under negotiation, it is not deemed advisable at the present moment to make any other allusion to the subject.
The recent visit of the Prince of Wales, in a private character, to the people of this country has proved to be a most auspicious event. In its consequences it can not fail to increase the kindred and kindly feelings which I trust may ever actuate the Government and people of both countries in their political and social intercourse with each other.
With France, our ancient and powerful ally, our relations continue to be of the most friendly character. A decision has recently been made by a French judicial tribunal, with the approbation of the Imperial Government, which can not fail to foster the sentiments of mutual regard that have so long existed between the two countries. Under the French law no person can serve in the armies of France unless he be a French citizen. The law of France recognizing the natural right of expatriation, it follows as a necessary consequence that a Frenchman by the fact of having become a citizen of the United States has changed his allegiance and has lost his native character. He can not therefore be compelled to serve in the French armies in case he should return to his native country. These principles were announced in 1852 by the French minister of war and in two late cases have been confirmed by the French judiciary. In these, two natives of France have been discharged from the French army because they had become American citizens. To employ the language of our present minister to France, who has rendered good service on this occasion. “I do not think our French naturalized fellow-citizens will hereafter experience much annoyance on this subject.”
I venture to predict that the time is not far distant when the other continental powers will adopt the same wise and just policy which has done so much honor to the enlightened Government of the Emperor. In any event, our Government is bound to protect the rights of our naturalized citizens everywhere to the same extent as though they had drawn their first breath in this country. We can recognize no distinction between our native and naturalized citizens.
Between the great Empire of Russia and the United States the mutual friendship and regard which has so long existed still continues to prevail, and if possible to increase. Indeed, our relations with that Empire are all that we could desire. Our relations with Spain are now of a more complicated, though less dangerous, character than they have been for many years. Our citizens have long held and continue to hold numerous claims against the Spanish Government. These had been ably urged for a series of years by our successive diplomatic representatives at Madrid, but without obtaining redress. The Spanish Government finally agreed to institute a joint commission for the adjustment of these claims, and on the 5th day of March, 1860, concluded a convention for this purpose with our present minister at Madrid.
Under this convention what have been denominated the “Cuban claims,” amounting to $128,635.54, in which more than 100 of our fellow-citizens are interested, were recognized, and the Spanish Government agreed to pay $100,000 of this amount “within three months following the exchange of ratifications.” The payment of the remaining $28,635.54 was to await the decision of the commissioners for or against the Amistad claim; but in any event the balance was to be paid to the claimants either by Spain or the United States. These terms, I have every reason to know, are highly satisfactory to the holders of the Cuban claims. Indeed, they have made a formal offer authorizing the State Department to settle these claims and to deduct the amount of the Amistad claim from the sums which they are entitled to receive from Spain. This offer, of course, can not be accepted. All other claims of citizens of the United States against Spain, or the subjects of the Queen of Spain against the United States, including the Amistad claim, were by this convention referred to a board of commissioners in the usual form. Neither the validity of the Amistad claim nor of any other claim against either party, with the single exception of the Cuban claims, was recognized by the convention. Indeed, the Spanish Government did not insist that the validity of the Amistad claim should be thus recognized, notwithstanding its payment had been recommended to Congress by two of my predecessors, as well as by myself, and an appropriation for that purpose had passed the Senate of the United States.
They were content that it should be submitted to the board for examination and decision like the other claims. Both Governments were bound respectively to pay the amounts awarded to the several claimants “at such times and places as may be fixed by and according to the tenor of said awards.”
I transmitted this convention to the Senate for their constitutional action on the 3d of May, 1860, and on the 27th of the succeeding June they determined that they would “not advise and consent” to its ratification.
These proceedings place our relations with Spain in an awkward and embarrassing position. It is more than probable that the final adjustment of these claims will devolve upon my successor.
I reiterate the recommendation contained in my annual message of December, 1858, and repeated in that of December, 1859, in favor of the acquisition of Cuba from Spain by fair purchase. I firmly believe that such an acquisition would contribute essentially to the well-being and prosperity of both countries in all future time, as well as prove the certain means of immediately abolishing the African slave trade throughout the world. I would not repeat this recommendation upon the present occasion if I believed that the transfer of Cuba to the United States upon conditions highly favorable to Spain could justly tarnish the national honor of the proud and ancient Spanish monarchy. Surely no person ever attributed to the first Napoleon a disregard of the national honor of France for transferring Louisiana to the United States for a fair equivalent, both in money and commercial advantages.
With the Emperor of Austria and the remaining continental powers of Europe, including that of the Sultan, our relations continue to be of the most friendly character.
The friendly and peaceful policy pursued by the Government of the United States toward the Empire of China has produced the most satisfactory results. The treaty of Tien-tsin of the 18th June, 1858, has been faithfully observed by the Chinese authorities. The convention of the 8th November, 1858, supplementary to this treaty, for the adjustment and satisfaction of the claims of our citizens on China referred to in my last annual message, has been already carried into effect so far as this was practicable. Under this convention the sum of 500,000 taels, equal to about $700,000, was stipulated to be paid in satisfaction of the claims of American citizens out of the one-fifth of the receipts for tonnage, import, and export duties on American vessels at the ports of Canton, Shanghai, and Fuchau, and it was “agreed that this amount shall be in full liquidation of all claims of American citizens at the various ports to this date.” Debentures for this amount, to wit, 300,000 taels for Canton, 100,000 for Shanghai, and 100,000 for Fuchau, were delivered, according to the terms of the convention, by the respective Chinese collectors of the customs of these ports to the agent selected by our minister to receive the same. Since that time the claims of our citizens have been adjusted by the board of commissioners appointed for that purpose under the act of March 3, 1859, and their awards, which proved satisfactory to the claimants, have been approved by our minister. In the aggregate they amount to the sum of $498,694.78. The claimants have already received a large proportion of the sums awarded to them out of the fund provided, and it is confidently expected that the remainder will ere long be entirely paid. After the awards shall have been satisfied there will remain a surplus of more than $200,000 at the disposition of Congress. As this will, in equity, belong to the Chinese Government, would not justice require its appropriation to some benevolent object in which the Chinese may be specially interested?
Our minister to China, in obedience to his instructions, has remained perfectly neutral in the war between Great Britain and France and the Chinese Empire, although, in conjunction with the Russian minister, he was ever ready and willing, had the opportunity offered, to employ his good offices in restoring peace between the parties. It is but an act of simple justice, both to our present minister and his predecessor, to state that they have proved fully equal to the delicate, trying, and responsible positions in which they have on different occasions been placed.
The ratifications of the treaty with Japan concluded at Yeddo on the 29th July, 1858, were exchanged at Washington on the 22d May last, and the treaty itself was proclaimed on the succeeding day. There is good reason to expect that under its protection and influence our trade and intercourse with that distant and interesting people will rapidly increase.
The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged with unusual solemnity. For this purpose the Tycoon had accredited three of his most distinguished subjects as envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary, who were received and treated with marked distinction and kindness, both by the Government and people of the United States. There is every reason to believe that they have returned to their native land entirely satisfied with their visit and inspired by the most friendly feelings for our country. Let us ardently hope, in the language of the treaty itself, that “there shall henceforward be perpetual peace and friendship between the United States of America and His Majesty the Tycoon of Japan and his successors.”
With the wise, conservative, and liberal Government of the Empire of Brazil our relations continue to be of the most amicable character.
The exchange of the ratifications of the convention with the Republic of New Granada signed at Washington on the 10th of September, 1857, has been long delayed from accidental causes for which neither party is censurable. These ratifications were duly exchanged in this city on the 5th of November last. Thus has a controversy been amicably terminated which had become so serious at the period of my inauguration as to require me, on the 17th of April, 1857, to direct our minister to demand his passports and return to the United States.
Under this convention the Government of New Granada has specially acknowledged itself to be responsible to our citizens “for damages which were caused by the riot at Panama on the 15th April, 1856.” These claims, together with other claims of our citizens which had been long urged in vain, are referred for adjustment to a board of commissioners. I submit a copy of the convention to Congress, and recommend the legislation necessary to carry it into effect.
Persevering efforts have been made for the adjustment of the claims of American citizens against the Government of Costa Rica, and I am happy to inform you that these have finally prevailed. A convention was signed at the city of San Jose on the 2d July last, between the minister resident of the United States in Costa Rica and the plenipotentiaries of that Republic, referring these claims to a board of commissioners and providing for the payment of their awards. This convention will be submitted immediately to the Senate for their constitutional action.
The claims of our citizens upon the Republic of Nicaragua have not yet been provided for by treaty, although diligent efforts for this purpose have been made by our minister resident to that Republic. These are still continued, with a fair prospect of success.
Our relations with Mexico remain in a most unsatisfactory condition. In my last two annual messages I discussed extensively the subject of these relations, and do not now propose to repeat at length the facts and arguments then presented. They proved conclusively that our citizens residing in Mexico and our merchants trading thereto had suffered a series of wrongs and outrages such as we have never patiently borne from any other nation. For these our successive ministers, invoking the faith of treaties, had in the name of their country persistently demanded redress and indemnification, but without the slightest effect. Indeed, so confident had the Mexican authorities become of our patient endurance that they universally believed they might commit these outrages upon American citizens with absolute impunity. Thus wrote our minister in 1856, and expressed the opinion that “nothing but a manifestation of the power of the Government and of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail.”
Afterwards, in 1857, came the adoption of a new constitution for Mexico, the election of a President and Congress under its provisions, and the inauguration of the President. Within one short month, however, this President was expelled from the capital by a rebellion in the army, and the supreme power of the Republic was assigned to General Zuloaga. This usurper was in his turn soon compelled to retire and give place to General Miramon.
Under the constitution which had thus been adopted Senor Juarez, as chief justice of the supreme court, became the lawful President of the Republic, and it was for the maintenance of the constitution and his authority derived from it that the civil war commenced and still continues to be prosecuted.
Throughout the year 1858 the constitutional party grew stronger and stronger. In the previous history of Mexico a successful military revolution at the capital had almost universally been the signal for submission throughout the Republic. Not so on the present occasion. A majority of the citizens persistently sustained the constitutional Government. When this was recognized, in April, 1859, by the Government of the United States, its authority extended over a large majority of the Mexican States and people, including Vera Cruz and all the other important seaports of the Republic. From that period our commerce with Mexico began to revive, and the constitutional Government has afforded it all the protection in its power.
Meanwhile the Government of Miramon still held sway at the capital and over the surrounding country, and continued its outrages against the few American citizens who still had the courage to remain within its power. To cap the climax, after the battle of Tacubaya, in April, 1859, General Marquez ordered three citizens of the United States, two of them physicians, to be seized in the hospital at that place, taken out and shot, without crime and without trial. This was done, notwithstanding our unfortunate countrymen were at the moment engaged in the holy cause of affording relief to the soldiers of both parties who had been wounded in the battle, without making any distinction between them.
The time had arrived, in my opinion, when this Government was bound to exert its power to avenge and redress the wrongs of our citizens and to afford them protection in Mexico. The interposing obstacle was that the portion of the country under the sway of Miramon could not be reached without passing over territory under the jurisdiction of the constitutional Government. Under these circumstances I deemed it my duty to recommend to Congress in my last annual message the employment of a sufficient military force to penetrate into the interior, where the Government of Miramon was to be found, with or, if need be, without the consent of the Juarez Government, though it was not doubted that this consent could be obtained. Never have I had a clearer conviction on any subject than of the justice as well as wisdom of such a policy. No other alternative was left except the entire abandonment of our fellow-citizens who had gone to Mexico under the faith of treaties to the systematic injustice, cruelty, and oppression of Miramon’s Government. Besides, it is almost certain that the simple authority to employ this force would of itself have accomplished all our objects without striking a single blow. The constitutional Government would then ere this have been established at the City of Mexico, and would have been ready and willing to the extent of its ability to do us justice.
In addition–and I deem this a most important consideration–European Governments would have been deprived of all pretext to interfere in the territorial and domestic concerns of Mexico. We should thus have been relieved from the obligation of resisting, even by force should this become necessary, any attempt by these Governments to deprive our neighboring Republic of portions of her territory–a duty from which we could not shrink without abandoning the traditional and established policy of the American people. I am happy to observe that, firmly relying upon the justice and good faith of these Governments, there is no present danger that such a contingency will happen.
Having discovered that my recommendations would not be sustained by Congress, the next alternative was to accomplish in some degree, if possible, the same objects by treaty stipulations with the constitutional Government. Such treaties were accordingly concluded by our late able and excellent minister to Mexico, and on the 4th of January last were submitted to the Senate for ratification. As these have not yet received the final action of that body, it would be improper for me to present a detailed statement of their provisions. Still, I may be permitted to express the opinion in advance that they are calculated to promote the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests of the country and to secure our just influence with an adjoining Republic as to whose fortunes and fate we can never feel indifferent, whilst at the same time they provide for the payment of a considerable amount toward the satisfaction of the claims of our injured fellow-citizens.
At the period of my inauguration I was confronted in Kansas by a revolutionary government existing under what is called the “Topeka constitution.” Its avowed object was to subdue the Territorial government by force and to inaugurate what was called the “Topeka government” in its stead. To accomplish this object an extensive military organization was formed, and its command intrusted to the most violent revolutionary leaders. Under these circumstances it became my imperative duty to exert the whole constitutional power of the Executive to prevent the flames of civil war from again raging in Kansas, which in the excited state of the public mind, both North and South, might have extended into the neighboring States. The hostile parties in Kansas had been inflamed against each other by emissaries both from the North and the South to a degree of malignity without parallel in our history. To prevent actual collision and to assist the civil magistrates in enforcing the laws, a strong detachment of the Army was stationed in the Territory, ready to aid the marshal and his deputies when lawfully called upon as a posse comitatus in the execution of civil and criminal process. Still, the troubles in Kansas could not have been permanently settled without an election by the people.
The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among freemen. Under this conviction every proper effort was employed to induce the hostile parties to vote at the election of delegates to frame a State constitution, and afterwards at the election to decide whether Kansas should be a slave or free State.
The insurgent party refused to vote at either, lest this might be considered a recognition on their part of the Territorial government established by Congress. A better spirit, however, seemed soon after to prevail, and the two parties met face to face at the third election, held on the first Monday of January, 1858, for members of the legislature and State officers under the Lecompton constitution. The result was the triumph of the antislavery party at the polls. This decision of the ballot box proved clearly that this party were in the majority, and removed the danger of civil war. From that time we have heard little or nothing of the Topeka government, and all serious danger of revolutionary troubles in Kansas was then at an end.
The Lecompton constitution, which had been thus recognized at this State election by the votes of both political parties in Kansas, was transmitted to me with the request that I should present it to Congress. This I could not have refused to do without violating my clearest and strongest convictions of duty. The constitution and all the proceedings which preceded and followed its formation were fair and regular on their face. I then believed, and experience has proved, that the interests of the people of Kansas would have been best consulted by its admission as a State into the Union, especially as the majority within a brief period could have amended the cons
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Apparently, this is the max length for comments. Here’s the rest for the record:

The Lecompton constitution, which had been thus recognized at this State election by the votes of both political parties in Kansas, was transmitted to me with the request that I should present it to Congress. This I could not have refused to do without violating my clearest and strongest convictions of duty. The constitution and all the proceedings which preceded and followed its formation were fair and regular on their face. I then believed, and experience has proved, that the interests of the people of Kansas would have been best consulted by its admission as a State into the Union, especially as the majority within a brief period could have amended the constitution according to their will and pleasure. If fraud existed in all or any of these proceedings, it was not for the President but for Congress to investigate and determine the question of fraud and what ought to be its consequences. If at the first two elections the majority refused to vote, it can not be pretended that this refusal to exercise the elective franchise could invalidate an election fairly held under lawful authority, even if they had not subsequently voted at the third election. It is true that the whole constitution had not been submitted to the people, as I always desired; but the precedents are numerous of the admission of States into the Union without such submission. It would not comport with my present purpose to review the proceedings of Congress upon the Lecompton constitution. It is sufficient to observe that their final action has removed the last vestige of serious revolutionary troubles. The desperate hand recently assembled under a notorious outlaw in the southern portion of the Territory to resist the execution of the laws and to plunder peaceful citizens will, I doubt not be speedily subdued and brought to justice.

Had I treated the Lecompton constitution as a nullity and refused to transmit it to Congress, it is not difficult to imagine, whilst recalling the position of the country at that moment, what would have been the disastrous consequences, both in and out of the Territory, from such a dereliction of duty on the part of the Executive.

Peace has also been restored within the Territory of Utah, which at the commencement of my Administration was in a state of open rebellion. This was the more dangerous, as the people, animated by a fanatical spirit and intrenched within their distant mountain fastnesses, might have made a long and formidable resistance. Cost what it might, it was necessary to bring them into subjection to the Constitution and the laws. Sound policy, therefore, as well as humanity, required that this object should if possible be accomplished without the effusion of blood. This could only be effected by sending a military force into the Territory sufficiently strong to convince the people that resistance would be hopeless, and at the same time to offer them a pardon for past offenses on condition of immediate submission to the Government. This policy was pursued with eminent success, and the only cause for regret is the heavy expenditure required to march a large detachment of the Army to that remote region and to furnish it subsistence.

Utah is now comparatively peaceful and quiet, and the military force has been withdrawn, except that portion of it necessary to keep the Indians in check and to protect the emigrant trains on their way to our Pacific possessions.

In my first annual message I promised to employ my best exertions in cooperation with Congress to reduce the expenditures of the Government within the limits of a wise and judicious economy. An overflowing Treasury had produced habits of prodigality and extravagance which could only be gradually corrected. The work required both time and patience. I applied myself diligently to this task from the beginning and was aided by the able and energetic efforts of the heads of the different Executive Departments. The result of our labors in this good cause did not appear in the sum total of our expenditures for the first two years, mainly in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure necessarily incurred in the Utah expedition and the very large amount of the contingent expenses of Congress during this period. These greatly exceeded the pay and mileage of the members. For the year ending June 30, 1858, whilst the pay and mileage amounted to $1,490,214, the contingent expenses rose to $2,093,309.79; and for the year ending June 30, 1859, whilst the pay and mileage amounted to $859,093.66, the contingent expenses amounted to $1,431,565.78. I am happy, however, to be able to inform you that during the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 1860, the total expenditures of the Government in all its branches–legislative, executive, and judicial–exclusive of the public debt, were reduced to the sum of $55,402,465.46. This conclusively appears from the books of the Treasury. In the year ending June 30, 1858, the total expenditure, exclusive of the public debt, amounted to $71,901,129.77, and that for the year ending June 30, 1859, to $66,346,226.13. Whilst the books of the Treasury show an actual expenditure of $59,848,474.72 for the year ending June 30, 1860, including $1,040,667.71 for the contingent expenses of Congress, there must be deducted from this amount the sum of $4,296,009.26, with the interest upon it of $150,000, appropriated by the act of February 15, 1860, “for the purpose of supplying the deficiency in the revenues and defraying the expenses of the Post-Office Department for the year ending June 30, 1859.” This sum therefore justly chargeable to the year 1859, must be deducted from the sum of $59,848,474.72 in order to ascertain the expenditure for the year ending June 30, 1860, which leaves a balance for the expenditures of that year of $55,402,465.46. The interest on the public debt, including Treasury notes, for the same fiscal year, ending June 30, 1860, amounted to $3,177,314.62, which, added to the above sum of $55,402,465.46, makes the aggregate of $58,579,780.08.

It ought in justice to be observed that several of the estimates from the Departments for the year ending June 30, 1860, were reduced by Congress below what was and still is deemed compatible with the public interest. Allowing a liberal margin of $2,500,000 for this reduction and for other causes, it may be safely asserted that the sum of $61,000,000, or, at the most, $62,000,000, is amply sufficient to administer the Government and to pay the interest on the public debt, unless contingent events should hereafter render extraordinary expenditures necessary.

This result has been attained in a considerable degree by the care exercised by the appropriate Departments in entering into public contracts. I have myself never interfered with the award of any such contract, except in a single case, with the Colonization Society, deeming it advisable to cast the whole responsibility in each case on the proper head of the Department, with the general instruction that these contracts should always be given to the lowest and best bidder. It has ever been my opinion that public contracts are not a legitimate source of patronage to be conferred upon personal or political favorites, but that in all such cases a public officer is bound to act for the Government as a prudent individual would act for himself.

It is with great satisfaction I communicate the fact that since the date of my last annual message not a single slave has been imported into the United States in violation of the laws prohibiting the African slave trade. This statement is rounded upon a thorough examination and investigation of the subject. Indeed, the spirit which prevailed some time since among a portion of our fellow-citizens in favor of this trade seems to have entirely subsided.

I also congratulate you upon the public sentiment which now exists against the crime of setting on foot military expeditions within the limits of the United States to proceed from thence and make war upon the people of unoffending States with whom we are at peace. In this respect a happy change has been effected since the commencement of my Administration. It surely ought to be the prayer of every Christian and patriot that such expeditions may never again receive countenance in our country or depart from our shores.

It would be a useless repetition to do more than refer with earnest commendation to my former recommendations in favor of the Pacific railroad; of the grant of power to the President to employ the naval force in the vicinity for the protection of the lives and property of our fellow-citizens passing in transit over the different Central American routes against sudden and lawless outbreaks and depredations, and also to protect American merchant vessels, their crews and cargoes, against violent and unlawful seizure and confiscation in the ports of Mexico and the South American Republics when these may be in a disturbed and revolutionary condition. It is my settled conviction that without such a power we do not afford that protection to those engaged in the commerce of the country which they have a right to demand.

I again recommend to Congress the passage of a law, in pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution, appointing a day certain previous to the 4th March in each year of an odd number for the election of Representatives throughout all the States. A similar power has already been exercised, with general approbation, in the appointment of the same day throughout the Union for holding the election of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States. My attention was earnestly directed to this subject from the fact that the Thirty-fifth Congress terminated on the 3d March, 1859, without making the necessary appropriation for the service of the Post-Office Department. I was then forced to consider the best remedy for this omission, and an immediate call of the present Congress was the natural resort. Upon inquiry, however, I ascertained that fifteen out of the thirty-three States composing the Confederacy were without Representatives, and that consequently these fifteen States would be disfranchised by such a call. These fifteen States will be in the same condition on the 4th March next. Ten of them can not elect Representatives, according to existing State laws, until different periods, extending from the beginning of August next until the months of October and November. In my last message I gave warning that in a time of sudden and alarming danger the salvation of our institutions might depend upon the power of the President immediately to assemble a full Congress to meet the emergency.

It is now quite evident that the financial necessities of the Government will require a modification of the tariff during your present session for the purpose of increasing the revenue. In this aspect, I desire to reiterate the recommendation contained in my last two annual messages in favor of imposing specific instead of ad valorem duties on all imported articles to which these can be properly applied. From long observation and experience I am convinced that specific duties are necessary, both to protect the revenue and to secure to our manufacturing interests that amount of incidental encouragement which unavoidably results from a revenue tariff.

As an abstract proposition it may be admitted that ad valorem duties would in theory be the most just and equal. But if the experience of this and of all other commercial nations has demonstrated that such duties can not be assessed and collected without great frauds upon the revenue, then it is the part of wisdom to resort to specific duties. Indeed, from the very nature of an ad valorem duty this must be the result. Under it the inevitable consequence is that foreign goods will be entered at less than their true value. The Treasury will therefore lose the duty on the difference between their real and fictitious value, and to this extent we are defrauded.

The temptations which ad valorem duties present to a dishonest importer are irresistible. His object is to pass his goods through the custom-house at the very lowest valuation necessary to save them from confiscation. In this he too often succeeds in spite of the vigilance of the revenue officers. Hence the resort to false invoices, one for the purchaser and another for the custom-house, and to other expedients to defraud the Government. The honest importer produces his invoice to the collector, stating the actual price at which he purchased the articles abroad. Not so the dishonest importer and the agent of the foreign manufacturer. And here it may be observed that a very large proportion of the manufactures imported from abroad are consigned for sale to commission merchants, who are mere agents employed by the manufacturers. In such cases no actual sale has been made to fix their value. The foreign manufacturer, if he be dishonest, prepares an invoice of the goods, not at their actual value, but at the very lowest rate necessary to escape detection. In this manner the dishonest importer and the foreign manufacturer enjoy a decided advantage over the honest merchant. They are thus enabled to undersell the fair trader and drive him from the market. In fact the operation of this system has already driven from the pursuits of honorable commerce many of that class of regular and conscientious merchants whose character throughout the world is the pride of our country.

The remedy for these evils is to be found in specific duties, so far as this may be practicable. They dispense with any inquiry at the custom-house into the actual cost or value of the article, and it pays the precise amount of duty previously fixed by law. They present no temptations to the appraisers of foreign goods, who receive but small salaries, and might by undervaluation in a few cases render themselves independent.

Besides, specific duties best conform to the requisition in the Constitution that “no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another.” Under our ad valorem system such preferences are to some extent inevitable, and complaints have often been made that the spirit of this provision has been violated by a lower appraisement of the same articles at one port than at another.

An impression strangely enough prevails to some extent that specific duties are necessarily protective duties. Nothing can be more fallacious. Great Britain glories in free trade, and yet her whole revenue from imports is at the present moment collected under a system of specific duties. It is a striking fact in this connection that in the commercial treaty of January 23, 1860, between France and England one of the articles provides that the ad valorem duties which it imposes shall be converted into specific duties within six months from its date, and these are to be ascertained by making an average of the prices for six months previous to that time. The reverse of the propositions would be nearer to the truth, because a much larger amount of revenue would be collected by merely converting the ad valorem duties of a tariff into equivalent specific duties. To this extent the revenue would be increased, and in the same proportion the specific duty might be diminished.

Specific duties would secure to the American manufacturer the incidental protection to which he is fairly entitled under a revenue tariff, and to this surely no person would object. The framers of the existing tariff have gone further, and in a liberal spirit have discriminated in favor of large and useful branches of our manufactures, not by raising the rate of duty upon the importation of similar articles from abroad, but, what is the same in effect, by admitting articles free of duty which enter into the composition of their fabrics.

Under the present system it has been often truly remarked that this incidental protection decreases when the manufacturer needs it most and increases when he needs it least, and constitutes a sliding scale which always operates against him. The revenues of the country are subject to similar fluctuations. Instead of approaching a steady standard, as would be the case under a system of specific duties, they sink and rise with the sinking and rising prices of articles in foreign countries. It would not be difficult for Congress to arrange a system of specific duties which would afford additional stability both to our revenue and our manufactures and without injury or injustice to any interest of the country. This might be accomplished by ascertaining the average value of any given article for a series of years at the place of exportation and by simply converting the rate of ad valorem duty upon it which might be deemed necessary for revenue purposes into the form of a specific duty. Such an arrangement could not injure the consumer. If he should pay a greater amount of duty one year, this would be counterbalanced by a lesser amount the next, and in the end the aggregate would be the same.

I desire to call your immediate attention to the present condition of the Treasury, so ably and clearly presented by the Secretary in his report to Congress, and to recommend that measures be promptly adopted to enable it to discharge its pressing obligations. The other recommendations of the report are well worthy of your favorable consideration.

I herewith transmit to Congress the reports of the Secretaries of War, of the Navy, of the Interior, and of the Postmaster-General. The recommendations and suggestions which they contain are highly valuable and deserve your careful attention.

The report of the Postmaster-General details the circumstances under which Cornelius Vanderbilt, on my request, agreed in the month of July last to carry the ocean mails between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Had he not thus acted this important intercommunication must have been suspended, at least for a season. The Postmaster-General had no power to make him any other compensation than the postages on the mail matter which he might carry. It was known at the time that these postages would fall far short of an adequate compensation, as well as of the sum which the same service had previously cost the Government. Mr. Vanderbilt, in a commendable spirit, was willing to rely upon the justice of Congress to make up the deficiency, and I therefore recommend that an appropriation may be granted for this purpose.

I should do great injustice to the Attorney-General were I to omit the mention of his distinguished services in the measures adopted and prosecuted by him for the defense of the Government against numerous and unfounded claims to land in California purporting to have been made by the Mexican Government previous to the treaty of cession. The successful opposition to these claims has saved the United States public property worth many millions of dollars and to individuals holding title under them to at least an equal amount.

It has been represented to me from sources which I deem reliable that the inhabitants in several portions of Kansas have been reduced nearly to a state of starvation on account of the almost total failure of their crops, whilst the harvests in every other portion of the country have been abundant. The prospect before them for the approaching winter is well calculated to enlist the sympathies of every heart. The destitution appears to be so general that it can not be relieved by private contributions, and they are in such indigent circumstances as to be unable to purchase the necessaries of life for themselves. I refer the subject to Congress. If any constitutional measure for their relief can be devised, I would recommend its adoption.

I cordially commend to your favorable regard the interests of the people of this District. They are eminently entitled to your consideration, especially since, unlike the people of the States, they can appeal to no government except that of the Union.

The act of secession itself did not cause the war. If secssion was the casue of the war. then why didn’t one of the presidents send troops to Biloxi, Miss.??? Neither president named a law in which secession was illegal, would that have been just cause for a war? Neither president used slavery as a reason to send troops to Sumter.

But Lincoln did send troops to Ft. Pickens in Florida. Neither president named a law because there was no specific law. Lincoln held that the Union under the Constitution was itself unbreakable, and no such law was needed. We’ve discussed this. You’re going around in circles.

For Lincoln, slavery wasn’t the issue. Union and secession were the issues. He said so repeatedly, starting with his 1st Inaugural address. Again, you are pointing to the spark instead of the massive amount of fuel that created the conflagration of the war.

Well, if you actually watched this video, you would get an amazingly full picture of what actually happened in 14 minutes. And what is it that Buchanan says, George? Please now–it’s time to put up or shut up.

Gee, let’s see. Historian reads Buchanan. Historian sees where Buchanan says slavery is the problem. Historian reads ORs. Historians sees in ORs where slavery is the problem. Historian reads a lot of sources, of which almost all say slavery was the problem. Moron named George reads Buchanan. []George fails to understand that slavery was the problem because []George refuses to accept that conclusion. Same [guy] reads the ORs and says they don’t say anything about slavery. Again, [he] is refusing to accept the evidence the contradicts his idea.

The Historian develops his interpretation based on the evidence. The [guy] refuses to accept any evidence that shows he is wrong. The Youtube video is based on historical evidence while the [guy] disputes the video because it does not say what he wants the history to be. Why should anyone bother with the [guy] when he has been proven wrong multiple times including by the very sources he displays?

I have told you time and time again, the secession docs mean nothing when you are discussing the cause of the war. The 13rh admend. blows them out of the water. Slavery became a none issue and soon disappeared from sight as the incidents at Sumter became the issue of the day. This easy to prove by reading Mr. Buchannan’s and the ORs.

Here is a portion of a reposnse to the government in South Carolina regarding Ft. Sumter. You can look this up yourself to view the entire letter. This actually mentions going to war for something.

It is difficult, however, to reconcile with this assurance the declaration on your part that “it is a consideration of her [South Carolina’s]

Page 168

own dignity as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a Government she no longer acknowledges,” and the thought you so constantly present, that this occupation must lead to a collision of arms, and the prevalence of civil war.

See how your little secession docs and speeches become meaningless as war nears. Fort Sumter is the isuue — the only issue.

I can go back to Cold Southern Steel, not a problem, and you will still be wrong about wslavery causing the war. You can also make another page and gst props from your buddies who by the way also failed to prove me wrong. It is just a matter of what floats your boat.

Excuse me, but Fort Sumter was not the property of South Carolina. It was the legal property of the United States of America. The deed is on file. I believe either Andy or Al wrote a very nice and exquisitely detailed article on this citing facts. Just because the secessionists in SC disagreed does not mean they were correct. They were wrong on pretty much everything such as SC’s owning that fort.

Had you used context in your historical analysis along with factual evidence you would have known this.

Jimmy you are correct but there is more than that to be said about the issue. You are free to come to Cold Southern Steel if you want to. But you have to leave your insults at home and be civil. Can I assume you are keeping up with my OR posts????

One last thing: George, the ORs are great for what they are. But they deal mostly with military issues, starting with the Sumter crisis. They don’t cover anything before that. That’s why the secession docs are so crucial–one cannot understand the war without understanding the period right after Lincoln’s election. Of course, you should go back 10 or 20 years–at the very least go back to 1854–if you really want to understand the pressures that cause secession and the war.

So this is why your analysis of slavery, secession, and the war is faulty; it’s not the OR documents you are using; you need to go further back.

Well, why did you ignore all my evidence–backed up with facts–in the other blog post?

To answer your question, that document deals with you tiny sliver of what was going on. In the context of the time period under study, it’s not significant in the big picture.

It’s not enough to just read a document. You have to ask questions of it–one must interrogate the sources. In this case, we have to ask why is Sec’y of War Holt writing to I. W. Hayne the Attorney-General of South Carolina about who owns Ft. Sumter? Why does Holt warn Hayne that his course of action is dangerous and could lead to war?

The answer is, of course, that two sides are negotiating over Ft. Sumter. Why? Under what justification does SC claim it, and the US deny that claim? Keep asking questions of the sources, and eventually you get to secession. But why did SC secede? Because they feared the Republican victory in the elections meant grave danger to slavery.

That’s the way it works. That’s why I didn’t answer it–it’s just one document dealing with the Sumter crisis. And that crisis, while important in itself in a discussion about who fired first and why, doesn’t address the larger picture of why there was war in the first place. The secession documents don’t declare war–of course not, that’s silly–but they do demonstrate that the Deep South was seceding from the Union over slavery. Without secession, there’s no war. Period. Now THAT is a historical fact.

And without slavery, there’s no secession. That’s what I proved in the blog post you refuse to read.

History is very different from what you think it is, George. You have to look at documents and events before the ORs. That’s why I keep telling you to look at the post I made. But you resist looking of what those crucial documents say. So instead of reading them, you just say you have “no need to adress [sic] race and secession.” That’s hardly the approach a real historian takes. That’s the approach of someone who has already decided on the result he wants, and be damned to the rest of the evidence.

So, fair’s fair: I have read the ORs you have shown us at CSS. Now it’s your turn to read my blog post and tell me why I’m wrong. If not, then I reserve the right to not approve your posts. You’re not banned, mind you–I’ve got nothing against you, and actually really do want your engagement–but I’ve looked at your evidence, and now I want you to comment on mine.

The answer is simple, you secession docs and speeches are made meaningless by the 13tjh adm. and events leading up to the war. The secession docs are nothing more tthan a list of griveances against the Federal government. They in no way imply the act of war. There is no evidence the cause of the war was slavery.

I have posted the 13th , Mr. Buchanan’s and most of the OEs supportinmg Buchanan yet you still argue the secession docs. and speeches while ignoring other events. Let me offer something else.

Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Government and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.

FROM James D. Richardson; A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office
Crittenden Resolution
John J. Crittenden, Congressman (KY)
1861

(passed by both houses of Congress in July 1861)

Now I know what your argument will be, that the Federal government was fighting to preserve the Union, but you cannot have two countries fighting for different reasons. The South did not fight because the US offered them slavery on a platter, it is a ridiculous argument. The issue was something else. What was that issue??? Ft. Sumter The broader issue money.

charged to necessity, and the holding of Fort Pickens would be adduced in support of that view. Our Southern friends, however, are clear that the evacuation of both the forts would instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slaveholding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual. The holding of Forts Jefferson and Taylor, on the ocean keys, depends on entirely different principles, and should never be abandoned; and, indeed, the giving up of Forts Sumter and Pickens may be best justified by the hope that we should thereby recover the State to which they geographically belong by the liberality of the act, besides retaining the eight doubtful States.

Now do you see what I don’t give your secession docs and speeches any attention??? They are made meaninmgless by other events.

Time and time again I have asked you to prove the secession doc. were war declarations, you have failed to do so. Why? Now you are coming right out and saying the secession docs show that slavery was the cause of the war, yet your only proof is the secession docs.

The 13th admen. makes these docs null and void

Show where these docs are declaring war over the issue of slavery and I will admit I am wrong. If you cannot do so, be a man, and admit I am right.

No-one has ever said that the secession ordinances were declarations of war. Your sense of “cause and effect” is incredibly limited to events at Sumter. That like saying in 1941, airplanes destroyed the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, not the Empire of Japan. And Jimmy has already exploded your 13th Amendment argument. You have not shown why he’s wrong. You don’t seem to get that a federal guarantee to protect slavery where it existed was not enough for Southern slaveholders, and they left the Union over it anyway.

I’m sorry, George, but I can’t devote any more time to this. I’m willing to argue with you in the spirit of a good argument, but you just aren’t doing that.

George, in reference to your last post. You are wrong. The secession documents do tell us exactly why the Lower South seceded: SLAVERY. They said it loud and proud.

You are trying to separate the actual start of a shooting war with what caused that war in the first place. The order from Jefferson Davis started the actual shooting war. The cause of the war was slavery itself. Had slavery not been causing secession there would not have been a war. The 13th Amendment does not prove the war was not about slavery. The ORs are military documents that come from the Civil War, a war caused by slavery.

You have done absolutely nothing to prove us wrong. In fact, you’ve shown more evidence that shows you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. You can’t even use the ORs properly because you’re trying to use them to prove something that they actually exist as the direct result of.

As for Buchanan, he flat out said that secession was the result of slavery yet you ignore that. Don’t waste my time with your ignorance any more. If you are too f****** stupid to understand what the people of the past said, then just shut up. The more I sit here and look at your “evidence” the more I see a dumbass who ignores context and anything that proves him wrong. Just shut up. Quit lying to everyone because that is exactly what you are doing. What you say may fly with the uneducated trash of America but it gets you laughed out of schools across the country.

George,
Have you read Apostles of Disunion? Have you actually read history instead of making trash up? You keep making the same claim and you can’t prove it. You can’t even use facts. Every time you do you prove yourself wrong. I’m laughing at how you use Buchanan. Good grief, you butcher it so badly. My students see this and they laugh at you. They can see what he is saying, but you deliberately refuse to admit that he said slavery was the problem. How f****** dumb are you?

George’s statement “The fact is no troops in Sumter, no war” offers not a fact but a hypothetical. The facts are that Ft. Sumter belonged to the USA and that Confederate forces fired upon it. Look, the USA currently has a naval base in Cuba. My point is that Jefferson Davis could have shown magnanimity about Ft. Sumter but chose to attack instead. George’s point is that Abraham Lincoln could have surrendered Ft. Sumter. The fact is that both men made their decisions.

MacPherson writes that Davis and the new Confederate gov’t were effectively forced to fire on Sumter to show the Upper South (which hadn’t yet seceded) that they were serious. Virginia, Tennessee, et al were not going to join the Confederacy if it did what South Carolina had been doing for 30 years: talk big about resisting the federal gov’t, only to back down when things threatened to get hot.

I don’t know so much about the Confederates they fired to show the upper South they were serious, but as the ORs are pointing out and I will post more of this in due time, Lincoln was putting together quite a large fleet to invade South Carolina. South Carolina and the rest of the country knew what was going down the road they had no choice but to fight.

I will say this, and it is just my opinion, war was going to happen one way or the other at any given place. Sumter just fit the bill at the time. Money being the root problem, since the issue of slavery was settled by secession. That too is a post for another day

It doesn’t matter which side owned Sumter, that is just smoke and mirrors argument. The facts that I have already presented in Mr. Buchanan’s and the ORs prove that point. The fact that Sumter commanded the harbor of Charleston was reason enough for South Carolina to want Anderson out. South Carolina made an offer to buy Sumter at a fair price, the US refused to sell only added more agitation. Ownership only came into question when war was near. Anderson’s move to Sumter was considered an act of war.

Sumter commanded the harbor entrance. The other forts supported Sumter. Anderson could have shut down any sea trade with Charleston from Sumter.

I would guess that by the act of secession that South Carolina tclaimed ownership of tyhe fort. The issue started when Buchanan was pres. , an aggrement was made forAnderson to not do anything to cause aggravation. Moving to Sumter and all parties knowing the importance of this fort set the events to war in motion.

To be honest I haven’t, at this time, read anything about the 3 year time frame to complete the forts in the harbor. Keep that fact in mind, it may become part of the issue later.

South Carolina could not buy Ft. Sumter because South Carolina was part of the United States, not some illegal renegade secession government. The traitors in South Carolina were acting illegally so there is no justification for their attacks on the lawful government of the United States. The rebellion was put down over time.

Well see that is where you are wrong. You have to get over your bigotry and hate and klet history tell the story. The Confederates were not traitors anymore than anyone else who has fought for independence.

Now we do know for a fact that Buchanan and Lincoln to an extent recognized the Confederate government because both these US Presidents meet with oppece commisioners from the CSA. South Carolina had everyright to buy Sumter if the US government wanted to sell. I know of no law preventing such a sale , do you????

Chris says that interpreting the secession declarations as declarations of war is “silly.” And George says that the secession declarations are “nothing but a list of grievences against the Federal government.” He continues, “There is no place it declares war.” Here’s some pushback.

It is true that the secession declarers fantasized about achieving secession without war. They acted upon their fantasy (1) by trying to get as many slave states as possible to join them so that the resulting confederation would be sufficiently large to discourage the USA from militarily putting down the slave state insurrection and (2) by acting as much as possible as if secession was fait accompli to encourage the people in the slave states to support them and to discourage the people in the free states from acting against them.

The proper way, though, to consider the secession declarations is not just as lists of grievances but as declarations of intention to go to war. They all conclude with the announcement that the so-called seceded states are now free and independent states, i.e. they already won the war that didn’t happen because they pre-emptively, single-handedly, and without negotiation emerged victorious against the people with whom they had grievances. Thus the secession declarations set down the clear implication that the so-called seceded states intended to fight militarily to achieve what they declared, if the federal government said no.

(By the way secession declared was not secession accomplished, just as revolution declared was not revolution accomplished. The revolution declared in 1776 was accomplished with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.)

What a load of hooey. War was never the intention. If you have been following my OR posting you will see that peace commissions from both sides were meeting to avoid war. It isclearlystated Ft. Sumter is the issue, nothing more, nothing less.

Besides with secession, sthe issue of slavery was settled for the United States. It was never going to expand more, that is just common sense.

The only thing you are showing is the lack of context in your attempt to write history. You are missing a lot of information because it proves you wrong. That is why I say you are lying. Plus, the argument was over slavery’s expansion. [Why] are you…ignor[ing] what the people were saying?

I don’t have to put anything into content.The documents i have posted and still post tellthe truth. When you say I don’t put things into content, context and offer no narrative, it simply means you do not agree with me, yet you have no facts to support your position.

A good example is Jimmy Dick, he is reduced to using foul language and insults.

I have wrote no revisions to history, that is an outright lie. I have not certainly not conmeup with some off the wall narrative trying to explain slavery and the war.I have posted nothing but facts supported by documents —UNION documents. The fact you have a clue about his is evident in your responses.

Rob slavery can be arguged several ways with the EP and West Virginia thrown into the mix. At this time just take the issue of slavery and secession. Yes slavery was a cause of secession, I have said that many times. No argument there. With secession and boundaries set slavery wasn’t going anyplace. The issue of slavery woulda, coulda, shoulda been setteled for the US.However slavery was still legal under the Constitution. Now consider this, The United States made no effort to eliminate slavery within its boundaries as the South seceeded.They did however pass an admenmdment to protect slavery hoping the South would return to the Union. It doesn’t sound to me like the US was totally against slavery at the time of secession or the South was more passionate..

The United States left it to various states and federal proclamations to decide on the issue of slavery. These laws sided heavily with containment and limitation of the institution. This was one of the points of tension, or what the South saw as an ‘attack’ on the institution of slavery. To provide this tu quoque argument in order to change the focus is just silly. I’m talking about why the South seceded and the importance of the issue of slavery. I’m not touching on the legality of slavery in the U.S. at this time.

You’re right. They passed an amendment protecting slavery. This further proves the importance of slavery to the South, that northern politicians would attempt to create a compromise amendment to entice them to stay.

Keep stacking those straws George. I never said the U.S. was “totally against slavery.” However, the South was definitely more passionately, they seceded over the issue after all.

Slavery was still legal in the United States regardless of what the states did. The spread of slavery or more specfic Negroes, into the territories became the rub. Slavery could have ended in the US at the time of secession but it did not. I have already gone over this with you.

“You’re right. They passed an amendment protecting slavery. This further proves the importance of slavery to the South, that northern politicians would attempt to create a compromise amendment to entice them to stay”

Well the departed didn’t return to the US because of that admn did they? That proves the slavery wasn’t the issue for them, but it does serve to prove the importance the US placed on them. Why were they so important Rob? Tell us. Was it because of the money they brought to the US treasurey??.

If the war was about slavery, why was the US willing to give these states slavery to return to the Union? Why would the Confederates fight for something being given to them??? The issue was money.

let me add this quote from Lincoln about the territories—-

“Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home—may find some spot where they can better their condition—where they can settle upon new soil, and better their condition in life_ I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over—in which Hans, and Baptiste, and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and better their condition in life”

Don’t care about the legality of slavery in the U.S., what I care about is the South and why political leaders at that time felt slavery was being attacked. They cited this over and over again, fought it in Congress and seceded because of it.

The seceded states knew that an amendment could be amended further, as was done in regards to prohibition in the 20th century. Southern leaders also knew that it was unlikely such an amendment would be ratified by other states, in addition to the fact that the Confederate Government was already in place. Keep in mind as well, usually the South reached a compromise over issues in which they threatened secession. In the Corwin Amendment, the offer was the status quo and without Southern gains. The South, time and time again, expressed distrust over Lincoln and the Republicans. Southern leaders viewed Republicans as the party that would end slavery.

No, the South added very little to the U.S. Treasury. The tariffs in the South were abysmal. The entire port revenue out of the South didn’t equal New York.

Many northern political leaders sought to maintain the union through various reasons. A lot of them are ideological. As far as the northern public, it is widely held that after Fort Sumter, northern public opinion, viewed the North as under attack given that the South fired the first shots and seized federal property. Prior to that the firing on Fort Sumter, only the deep South seceded, not the entirety of the South. So many saw this is the same event that occurred in the 1820s and 30s. Bare in mind that political leaders of the time also had a collective memory of the havoc and anarchy of the Napoleonic Wars. Both Sherman and Lincoln at one point reasoned that secession was essentially anarchy which would destroy the nation. Thinking back on the histories of the North Georgia, East Tennessee, and other places which fought internal civil wars during the national Civil War; they might be right.

In short, to answer your redundant questions. The South did not trust the North on the issue of slavery. This was extended especially to Lincoln. This is expressed in papers, letters and legislation of the time. Short of Lincoln promising to allow slavery to expand into the midwest, it is unlikely the South would have felt secure in the institution regardless. They seceded to protect an institution which the entirety of the southern social order was based on. To secure this, they began seizing federal property throughout the south in an attempt to solidify dominance over their new country. This reached a stand-off at Ft. Sumter, where the U.S. military would not surrender federal property. The South was forced into a position to act (start war or admit to wrong doing [secession], with other Southern states watching). They fired, which brought the North down in retaliation.

Great Lincoln quote, it really expresses his “Free Soil” attitudes, but it does little to further this discussion. It only serves to detract and point the finger at something else. I’d love to see you actually present this type of argument in a historical conference.

that proves my point. I suggest reading the PDF posted . It will take some time but I think it is worth the effort.

As I have said before slavery was given to the seceeding states, they yad no reason to fight for that institution. The Federall wanted these states back again.

Now I asked you a simple question, why did the Federal government place such value on the Sseceeded atstes and wanted to bring them back into the Union? You did not give an answer. Perhaps the little passage below will answer the question for you.

Registered Member #1

Joined: Tue Jul 17 2007, 09:46AM
Posts: 3268
“What then would become of my tariff?” Abraham Lincoln.
This question by President Lincoln has been lately looked for by several of this board and lost to memory, below is where it originated and where it is referenced.

Mr. Seward, of the peace-faction, sent Allen B. McGruder, as confidential messenger to Richmond, to hold an interview with Mr. Janney (president of the convention), Mr. Stuart, Col. Baldwin, and other influential men of the ruling “Union party.” Mr. Seward said that secrecy was all important, and while it was extremely desirable that one of them should see Lincoln, it was equally important that the public should know nothing of the interview. Col. Baldwin responded to the invitation, since, though one of the ablest men of the convention, he was known personally to but few in Washington, having never served in Federal politics. He repaired to Washington as soon as possible, went in a closed carriage to Seward, and from there, in his company, to the White House. But in this short time the policy of the administration had. undergone a change. Seven Republican governors of Northern and North-eastern States representing the ” stiff-backed ” clique had descended on the government, and won the victory over Seward and the rest. With the ignorance of the South, which I am sorry to say is still prevalent with many Northern writers, they represented to Mr. Lincoln that the people of the South were not in earnest; that all their speeches, resolutions, and declarations of resistance were but a “game of brag;” that Virginia and the Border States would never leave the Union; that it would ruin the North to have a free-trade people to the South of them; that it would be but an easy job to conquer the cotton States, etc., etc. Mr. Lincoln, who had vacillated between the parties, found the combined pressure of office-seekers -and tariff-men too much for him; and when Col. Baldwin arrived he had gone over to the stiff-backed men, bag and baggage. But Mr. Lincoln gave him a most private interview, and the latter quickly dispossessed him of his erroneous impressions regarding the intentions of the Border States, who looked to Virginia as their leader. Lincoln’s native good sense, under the influence of Col. Baldwin’^ evident sincerity, immediately grasped the truth. He clutched his shaggy hair, as though he would jerk out handfulls by the roots; he frowned and contorted his features, exclaiming: “I ought to have known this sooner! You are too late, sir, too late! Why did you not come here four days ago, and tell me all this?” turning almost fiercely upon Col. Baldwin. Baldwin replied: “Why, Mr. President, you did not ask our advice. Be sides, as soon as we received permission to tender it, I came by the first train as fast as steam would bring me.” Lincoln rejoined: “Yes, but you are too late, I tell you, too late!” Col. Baldwin pleaded the question with him as he never did a case on behalf of a client in jeopardy of life. One* single step would be sufficient to paralyze the secession movement. This was a simple proclamation, repudiating the right of coercing sovereign States by force of arms, and to rely upon conciliation to bring them back into the Union, as had been the course pursued with respect to Rhode Island and North Carolina in 1790. It was a contradiction to suppose that any State would voluntarily abnegate Union except under conviction of real wrong. The question of the Territories had no such importance in the eyes of the Border States to urge them into secession, but coercion would be universally considered the casus belli. Lincoln seemed impressed by Baldwin’s eloquence and solemnity, and asked: “But what am I to do meantime with those men at Montgomery? Am I to let them go on?” “Yes, sir,” replied Col. Baldwin decidedly, “until they can be peacefully brought back.” “And open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry with their ten per cent, tariff? What then would become of my tariff?” This last question he announced with such emphasis as showed in his view that it decided the whole matter.

Memoir of a Narrative Received of Colonel John B. Baldwin, of Staunton, Touching the Origin of the War. By Rev. R. L. Dabney, D. D.

George, you should care about the documents because they are important. They demonstrate not the efforts of individuals, but of collective assemblies to willfully rebel against the United States for specific purposes. These assemblies stated their preferred reasons for secession, and the dominant topic is always slavery. It doesn’t matter if slavery was legal in the United States at that time. No one is arguing the contrary. What matters is that the South felt the institution was under attack, that slave state political power was hemmed and that the election of Lincoln was a vital threat.

The South’s wealth was lagging behind the North’s. This is especially true in regards to tariffs. Despite the fact that a few Southern states had issues with the tariffs, they were never in unison on the issue. In fact, some Southern states benefited from the tariffs, which is why the did not follow S.C. in the 1830s.http://eh.net/database/u-s-customs-house-data-1854-59/

Posting an opinionated newspaper article, and a cherry picked portion of a speech that undoubtedly included more than what you copied and pasted, are not adequate sources in order to frame an argument. Additionally, the demonstrate opinions of single men, which is no weight outweighs legislative mandates.

The South had every reason to fight for slavery. Their economy, social order, etc. was all based on the institution. Subsequent pleas, arguments, and opinions were published by various southern leaders on the institutions importance and the threats on the institution by the North. It brought conflict on numerous occasions leading up to the civil war. It was a point of tension during the Revolution, during the Constitutional Convention, during the 1st and 2nd Seminole wars, the Texas Revolution, after the Mexican-American War and the settlement of the West. Conflict nearly boiled over on numerous occasions (Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas). The list goes on and on George.

I actually provided a plethora of answers…I can’t help it if you cannot read.

This discussion between Lincoln has been rehashed time and time again. Too bad it is entirely a secondary account of something Lincoln might have said. You know, it’s hilarious you question the validity of A. Stephen’s Cornerstone Speech (even though Stevens admits that he spoke to the reporter and that the reporter changed variances in the account which did not include slavery), but you don’t approach anything that affirms your ill-thoughtout arguments with the same skepticism. Way to by objective…

The problem is that George is not using the facts the way they happened. He makes the claim that secession settled slavery. No, it did not. The CW settled slavery. Secession was caused by slavery which led to a war when Jefferson Davis realized things were not going the way he needed them to go. No slavery, no civil war.

He is also repeating the Beardian claim about economics being the cause of the CW. That is erroneous, but a fixture of the Lost Cause belief system.

Then he makes the claim that Anderson’s move to Sumter was an act of war. Wrong again. An officer of the US Army did not have to answer to trash who called themselves confederates. They had NO legal power over him whatsoever. Yet, George ignores this because to him the South was justified in their illegal rebellion. That’s where problems are occurring. Secession was unconstitutional. The actions of the lower south in seceding were illegal. Until he gets that through his head, he will not be doing anything but lying to people because he is trying to develop a history constructed on a false foundation.

George,
Lincoln was pretty smart. He never met with any confederate peace commissioners. He knew to do so would give the traitors a veneer of legitimacy which they had not earned nor ever would. Stop making crap up and trying to pass it off as fact.

George is trying to argue that the USA’s goal in 1860-1 wasn’t to rid the USA of slavery. He’s basically saying that if the USA’s goal was really slavery eradication in the USA, wouldn’t acquiescing to secession have advanced the country towards that goal by ridding the USA of those slave states that declared secession?

George’s argument is moot because everyone already knows and has stipulated (1) that the USA’s goal in 1860-1 wasn’t to rid the USA of slavery and (2) that the USA’s goals in 1860-1 were (1) to put down the slave state insurrection of the so-called seceded states, (2) to keep the country together, and (3) to put the country on a course where slavery would eventually be eliminated by immediately stopping the spread of slavery into the federal territories.

George wants to say that two sides in any conflict must have one and only one exactly opposing reason. Regarding the slave state insurrection, the slave states that insurrected were afraid of losing slavery and were greedy for it to spread. No matter how frequently Lincoln said that despite his strong anti-slavery beliefs they wouldn’t lose slavery in their states with him as President, they were never palliated.

Lincoln, keeping his eye on his 3 goals listed above, put down the slave state insurrection when the insurrection turned violent, at Ft. Sumter.

I have posted docs. proving that slavery wasn’t the casue of the war. I have posted docs that ptrove the US was willing to give the seceeded states slavery to come back to the Union. Alsso I have provided proof that Sumter was the issue that brought war to this country.

The best you can do is tell people youir opinion.

So how about you provide some docs
1. that prove the goal of the US in 1860 was to stop slavery.by going to war

2. a doc that proves the Confederacy was fighting for the preservation of slavery.and not independence

3. doc that says the goal of the US in 1861 was to free the slaves.

Bring the docs on. You wany to be the wonder boy and run your mouth let’s see you put up some real facts.

That probably has lot to do with your documents not proving anything about the war’s causes. You just think they do, and you’re sticking to that inaccurate assertion.

1.) He just told you that the U.S. policy was not to go to war to stop slavery. You are creating a straw-man argument by continuing to suggest that he is. Get this through that thick head George; no one is saying that the north went to war to end slavery.

2.) Why? Every time someone posts articles that definitively prove the main cause of the war, you dismiss the documents suggesting that secession is not war. You fail to recognize that war is merely policy by other means. The South went to war, to defend their act of secession, which was driven by slavery. When the country is at war, Jefferson Davis addresses the Confederate Congress about the conflict while giving them a history lesson of the repeated offenses of the north towards slavery. Easily connectable. When the state’s policy of secession to defend slavery did not pan out, they results to armed conflict to achieve the same ends.

3.) That’s a redundant question. Why ask the same thing twice? See number one again.

See George, this is an example of how you have no understanding of historical analysis. It is literally impossible to prove a historical document “wrong.” One might, however, prove content within a document as wrong. But the document remains evidence of something (opinion, fact, lying, etc.) just the same. What is wrong, and what has been proven wrong by numerous people on various threads, is that your interpretation of historical documents is wrong.

You proved Ft. Sumter was trigger, which everyone already knew.
1. No such docs.
2. Independence was goal, slavery — specifically securing and expanding — was reason. Docs = declarations of secession and every single other doc each and every one of them without exception including every single doc you posted — from 1776 to 1861.
3. No such docs.
Pleasure.

If you cannot bring the docs proving the South went to war over the institution of slavery then your argumenti s useless.

No if expanding tslavery was the reasobn for war then the Confederate states would have taken the offer to return to the US. The boundaries of slavery was limited when they seceeded. That stands to reason.

3. No docs no cigar. Isn’t it amazing I can produce docs to back up my statements????? What is more amazing I produce these historical documents, that most here have never read or heard of, and instead of folks taking them and learning they tell me the docs are wrong. Unbelieveable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did put up real facts proving my point and so did you. Your problem is you are trying to make them say what they don’t. YOU ARE WRONG. You have been proven wrong. Get it through your head. You can’t even analyze the facts like the secession documents because you know they prove you wrong. You are not a historian. Stop pretending to be one.

Come on, George! Are you going to make the idiotic statement that has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the South financed the North with its exports dead wrong? Are you that stupid? Come on! Whip out those facts! Because when you do you’ll be buried under the actual facts. The tariff issue is pure bullcrap. The facts prove that beyond any chance of contestation. When are you going to stop trying to pass off this Lost Cause mythology as fact?

Grow up. Quit lying to people with that weak ass crap of yours that falls apart like Confederate flag toilet paper in a rain storm. You have yet to prove anything. Most of the facts you put on here prove you wrong. That’s just ignorance on your part to keep repeating yourself. Every time you post on here you make yourself look dumber than the time before.

Rob, he can’t go to a real historical conference because he would get laughed out of the room. That is also why he cannot get a degree in history. He would not pass the classes because he refuses to let the facts speak for themselves. He cannot unlearn in order to relearn because that would conflict with his beliefs which are not based upon factual evidence.

In other words, he is a typical neo-confederate who refuses to accept reality for what it is.

Really? A guy who blows off the secession docs saying they are meaningless? That is your ignorance showing through. You reject anything that shows you are wrong. That is just you being stupid.

George, you got owned on this thread multiple times by several people and you still make the same stupid ignorant claims. You want a doc? Start reading books and throw your Lost Cause handbook in the trash. If you can’t read Dew and see where you are wrong then you are beyond redemption. You have not read Dew though. You will not read anything that shows you are wrong. You ignore the facts and then throw stuff out there totally out of context.

Your Lincoln line about the tariffs? That’s a joke. It has been ripped apart multiple times and yet here you are again tossing it out there as fact. I’d ask how stupid you are, but you just proved it with that so called fact. We’ve shown you that the tariff was not the factor you want it to be, but you keep on saying it was. That is your ignorance.

I’m done with you and your stupidity. Every historian on this thread has shown you to be wrong and you can’t admit it. That is insanity on your part. This is Chris’s blog, but if it was mine you would be long gone because you fail every time you post.

With the neconfederate absurdity reaching full circle, it’s time to close the threads and to remember what Mr. Larry Wilmore said in the video that the post introduced. The South didn’t invent slavery but held on to it like crazy. And so….

The single issue about which the war was fought was not the existence of slavery but the expansion of slavery. The goal of the USA was to expand in a way that would eventually extinguish slavery, while the goal of the states that declared secession and operated under the Confederacy was to expand in a way that would immediately inculcate slavery.

For more information and relevant docs see the post that Chris wrote for George; it’s the next post at the true blue federalist. Best to all.

Since George wants to bring in that weakass Williams and DiLorenzo stuff, let’s see a good quote from Andy Hall on the subject as he was busy ripping new assholes in neo-confederates over on civilwartalk last year.

“But I do know this: craptacular “historians” like Walter Williams, who claimed that “Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859,” and Tom DiLorenzo, whose first edition of The Real Lincoln (2002) claimed that “in 1860 the Southern states were paying in excess of 80 percent of all tariffs. . . .” should rightfully be laughed out of any faculty meeting, professional conference or opium den where people take history seriously.”

good old George has been throwing the tariff around since at least 2010 and lied to a lot of people. Fortunately those with facts were able to prove George was wrong. Why? Because George uses made up stuff or quotes out of context like his hero DiLorenzo does.

Oh, and here is a link to the map on those famous and extensive revenues generated in the South courtesy of Andy Hall as well. Next time you should check your sources for accuracy George, because you used on that is false.